


Roland's Songbook

by a_mere_trifle



Category: Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Character Study, Drama, Gen, and Mossad is right out, and has a guitar, and keeps trying to figure out who's drugged him, it's not the KGB's style, nnkii except Roland is the President of the United States
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 08:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_mere_trifle/pseuds/a_mere_trifle
Summary: “Still, it’s a song from your world,” said Evan. “You should sing them. How else will anyone ever get a chance to hear them?”Or: NNKII, by way of the songs that keep getting stuck in Roland's head.
Comments: 26
Kudos: 59





	1. Songbook 1 | All That You Can Leave Behind

**Author's Note:**

> For a full playlist of songs mentioned, try [this link](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3rlv870GeNezmDBqndvSd-BVNYRkZTey) (subject to the whims of YouTube and the vagaries of time). It should also be mentioned that not every song is necessarily what one would call "good".
> 
> I haven't played any of the DLC and didn't make a huge effort to try to make this compatible with it.
> 
> Mostly this goes in chronological order, but there is a flash-forward to postgame at the end of the chapter with Niall, so beware.

\--

Roland stared at the bit of jewelry on his arm, more than a little dazed. Something that could store weapons and give you infinite ammo at the same time? The NRA would perform acts most of their members lobbied strongly against for this thing. And then Chicago would basically be destroyed. Also Detroit, and New York, and it would probably actually be more devastating than the nuclear blast, by an order of magnitude. And here she was, just handing him a spare.

“Have you got the hang of it yet? You’d best be sure before we move on.” Aranella nodded encouragingly at him. “Come on. Give it another try.”

He took a deep breath, and thought about the familiar weight of his gun in his hand-- and there it was. He let it go, and the band re-absorbed it. He thought of the sword he’d picked up, decently weighted, with a rough hilt-- and there it was. Like magic. Or a dream.

“What happens if I pick up more than one sword?” he asked. “Or gun?” He hadn’t thought a place that used swords this widely would have any idea what a gun was, but the arms band reloaded it, and Aranella didn’t seem fazed by it at all.

“You should be able to tell by the feel of it,” she said. “You should also be able to get a sense of what’s in there. Concentrate on it, and try.”

He closed his eyes, feeling silly, but trying it just the same. He got a sense of something gunlike, and something swordlike, and-- something else?

He frowned, and pulled it out. It was a-- guitar?

“Oh, I forgot I put that there,” said Aranella. “Well, we can sort that out later.”

He frowned at it. It seemed like an ordinary guitar to him, though the colors of the wood might be a bit different, and the patterns of the inlay seemed just a little off. “This is a weapon?”

“No, I left it in there for safekeeping. The arms band is pretty versatile that way. It helps awfully when travelling.” She smiled. “Well, I guess you’ll find out soon enough for yourself. Do you think you’ve got it down?”

In all the ways that immediately mattered. He nodded.

“All right,” she said. “Time is of the essence. Let’s go.”

Roland willed the guitar back into the arms band, ready to run. Running was concrete. Running was useful. Running meant not having to look back.

\--

The city was dark and burning, built entirely in firelight, and the dead were haunting the streets, human forms wreathed in flame. He didn’t run. This was his country, this his people; he was the President of Ruin, and it was coming for him, a dark shape walking toward him, laying a hand against his chest and wreathing him in fire that burned and spread and consumed him from--

\--he was tangled up in his sleeping bag, dumped back into the-- real-- into what was probably awakeness-- by Evan’s shout. He looked around frantically for enemies-- more dogs, more skeletons, more goddamn hamsters-- but Evan was unharmed, breathing heavily, wrapping shaking arms around his knees. Nightmares. Of course.

“I-- I’m sorry,” said Evan, trembling. “I didn’t mean-- I just--”

Roland shook his head. “You did me a favor,” he said. “I wasn’t having pleasant dreams myself.”

Evan burrowed closer into himself. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Roland offered. “Sometimes it helps.”

Evan shook his head. “I was just remembering,” he said, as if that were explanation enough. And of course, it was.

“Gonna try to get back to sleep, then?”

“In a minute.”

Roland nodded, and politely looked away. To be honest, he didn’t feel much like sleeping again himself. Assuming he wasn’t already. But there wasn’t much to do but feed the fire or watch the strange new stars.

After a moment, he pulled out the guitar, plucking idly at a string. It might be disrespectful to play a dead woman’s instrument, but-- she’d entrusted him with far more important things. He doubted that she’d mind. 

It seemed in tune; Aranella had clearly known how to take care of it. It didn’t seem that much different from the instrument he knew, either. He tried a few frets, tested the other strings; attempted a chord, and got just about what he expected.

“You know how to play?” Evan was lying down again now, watching him with wide eyes.

“A little,” he said. “It’s been a while.”

“Oh,” he said. He left it at that, but Roland was remembering now the last times he'd played for any length of time-- at the side of a small bed. He suspected he might know why Aranella had kept a guitar in an arms band.

“Mind if I play with this a bit?”

“Not at all,” said Evan.

He picked up the guitar and started to experiment. He’d forgotten more than a little, but he could save his pride by also blaming the new instrument. It wasn’t too long at all before he stopped hitting sour notes, and only a little while before he was mostly playing the notes he’d intended. Back to chords, now, and he looked at Evan. He was still and quiet; he had to be at least mostly asleep. Poor kid. So scared, so naive, so determined.

The chord he played matched the one in his mind. He made his way through a verse, with only a few spots of hesitation; he tried it again, and could tell he was at least getting better. He looked across at Evan, at the fire, then at the ink of the sky.

“And if the darkness is to keep us apart,” he sang softly. “And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off. And if your glass heart should crack…”

Odd to feel his old, new voice reaching for the higher note. It was a slight strain, but he curled his voice around it. “And for a second you turn back; oh no, be strong. Walk on.” He went for a lower variation on the original note, cautious with his voice, testing his limits. “Walk on. What you’ve got, they can’t steal it, they can’t even feel it. Walk on. Walk on. Stay safe tonight…”

He sighed, looking up at the sky. “You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been. A place that has to be believed to be seen…”

Heh. He appreciated, as he sang on, why this had been the song to catch in his head. It probably wasn’t going to be as easy as merely believing, but then again, believing in itself wasn’t always an easy task. Not for people like him. He tried for the higher notes; his voice strained, but made it. “And I know it aches, how your heart it breaks, you can only take so much; but walk on…”

He shut his eyes, seeing fire, hearing the roar of flame, of distant shouts and sirens. Whatever was happening, he wasn’t there now. “Leave it behind,” he sang to himself. “You’ve got to leave it behind…”

Leave it behind. “All that you fashion. All that you fake. All that you build, all that you break. All that you reason. All that you find. All this you can leave behind.”

His memory of the words blurred; he made up his own. "All that you whisper. All that you cede. All that you fail and all you succeed. All that you pray for. All that you're blind. All this you can leave behind…" 

He fell silent, shutting his eyes, still picking out the tune, as if repetition would help to make it real. Nothing was real, though, nothing felt quite real, and yet at the same time it all felt almost too real, some senses heightened while others were dulled. He could call up the memory of fire at a moment’s notice, had to fight it whenever he closed his eyes, and yet-- and yet--

It didn’t matter. He was here, now, with a different set of problems; no idea where he was or how he got here, and no idea how or if he could go back. 

Leave it behind, he thought. _Leave it behind._ He was too tired to think, too tired to play, too haunted to sleep. There was nothing for it. He’d have to try it again anyway. Even with this newly youthful body, the exhaustion would have to help. He only needed it to see him to the dawn.

He put the guitar away, after only a couple of fumbles with the arms band, and settled back into his bedroll with a sigh.

Evan, staring blearily out into the tall grass, silently upgraded Roland in his mind from a man he had no choice but to trust to a man he knew he could. 

\--


	2. Songbook 2 | When You Cast Your Spell

\--

“Higgle piggle!”

Roland stared at the creature that was apparently called a higgledy. The higgledy waved back.

Whatever he’d said to the reporters, Roland had, in fact, done a few drugs back in his college days, but nothing anywhere near hard enough to explain _this_.

“You’ve really never seen one before, have you?” said Evan, in between bites of apple.

“Never in my life.” Because they weren’t real. They were completely absurd. The most absurd part was the one about only being able to be seen by the pure of heart, which was patently untrue, or he wouldn’t be staring at the thing right now.

The cat ears he could excuse as unusual genetic diversity, magic was surely sufficiently advanced technology, but this? This? What the hell?

“Well, they are pretty elusive,” said Evan. “Maybe they didn’t like it where you lived?”

“I suppose that would make sense,” said Roland. Which was probably one of his best exercises of diplomacy to date.

Evan seemed to accept it, turning his attention back to his apple. 

“Higgle?” The Higgledy was climbing a shrub, looking back at him with a quizzical expression. Then it stuck a leaf on its head and continued with its climb.

All right. So. Option one was that he was dying, and the process of brain death led to far stranger and more intricate dreams than any recorded near death experience had suggested. Option two was that he was already flat-out dead, and the afterlife was something every religion had managed to get equally wrong. Somehow he doubted that would band them together in solidarity. Option three was that he had somehow been captured by enemy agents and was being fed some designer drug that would fetch one hell of a lot of money on the black market in order to… keep him quiet? Get him to talk? Coax confidential information from his subconscious? And who the hell would be capable of that, anyway? The reach suggested KGB, but the ears suggested Japan. Or had North Korea finally done it?

Option four was that he had been magically spirited away to an alternate world. It was probably about as likely as option three, but he had to say one and two were the winners by far.

“Higgle-dee-hig!”

But the thing was, what would be the use in protesting? If it were option four, he should be polite and do as the proverbial Romans did. If it were option three, a demand to end the charade would probably be met with far less pleasant contingency plans. And if it were option one or two, it seemed highly unlikely that there was anything he could do to alter anything, certainly not without more information.

Besides, there were worse dreams.

“You’re sure you don't want anything?” said Evan. “I could start another fire.”

Roland shook his head. The boy was clearly proud of his new skill; the first time he’d tried it, the fireball had nearly taken half of Roland’s coat. Singleminded practice had already gotten it down to a reasonable campfire size. Roland wasn’t sure how any of that worked, but he was fairly certain it was something to be proud of.

“Sorry… I suppose you’d make your own fire if you wanted one.” Evan looked away. “And here I am showing off over nothing.”

“Evan,” said Roland, “where I come from, there _is_ no magic.”

Evan frowned. “You don’t learn it at school? I’ve heard of a place where they prefer to focus on technology…”

“I’m pretty sure it just _doesn’t exist_. As far as I know, anyway.” Though he supposed he shouldn’t put anything past the NSA. But if it turned out someone was hiding American Hogwarts in Area 51, he was going to keelhaul their asses so hard they’d be looking for their funding for decades. 

What the hell had his life become? _Obviously_ he was dead.

“It doesn’t exist at all?” The furrow in Evan’s brow deepened. “I can’t even imagine.”

“Higgle!” The Higgledy had reached a large branch and was now performing a dance that seemed to involve copious wiggling of its equivalent of a butt.

Roland wondered exactly what he’d have to do to _stop_ seeing Higgledies. It clearly wasn’t a virginity thing… unless being in a new world reset the counter for some silly reason, in which case… He wasn’t sure if that prospect were more or less daunting than having to murder a kitten or something. Then again, they hadn’t shown a lot of mercy to these giant hamsters, and that hadn’t sullied him enough to escape… 

“It must be very strange for you, then,” said Evan. “And-- I suppose you can’t just light a fire, then?”

“Not without some kind of tools,” said Roland. “Or a very lucky shot.”

“I could try to teach you,” offered Evan. 

“I don’t know,” said Roland. “You know what they say about-- _do_ they have the saying ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ here? Or are there dog people too that would be horrifically rude to?”

“There aren’t dogkind in your world?”

Roland put his head in his hand. Maybe he’d fallen into the hands of the KGB’s closet furry division? No, this had to be from Asia… But didn’t Chinese intelligence have bigger things to worry about right now?

“Anyway, you’re not that old,” said Evan. “And you’ve got a handle on the arms band already. You won’t know if you don’t try.”

“Fair enough,” said Roland. “So, how does it work, then?”

“Well,” said Evan, “I don’t know everything about it yet, but this is what my teachers told me. Everyone can use magic-- with help, at least. Some people are much better at it than others, just like some people are better at running or singing. But everyone can do at least a little, even if they need a wand to make it useful. There are also different types of magic. You might be better at some than others. Someone who’s fantastic at water magic might have trouble lighting a candle. They still probably could, but it would take a lot of time and effort, so that’s why we have matches instead.”

“All right,” said Roland.

“So, it’s a little like using an arms band,” said Evan. “You concentrate in the same sort of way. You keep your mind still, and you reach out, and-- call.”

“Call what?”

“The magic you’re looking for.”

“There isn’t like-- a spell, or an incantation, or anything?”

“Oh, spells exist, but that’s for later. Spells just-- teach you things to do with the magic once you call it forth. You’ve got to know how to call it, first.”

So, more intention, fewer spells. He picked up a twig and held out his hand, concentrating. Concentrating on what? Willing the wood to burn? But that didn’t fit with Evan’s description. He talked like magic was out there, outside of you, a thing you summoned. Did you need to ask politely? Was it conscious?

He thought of the arms band, of the way he could sense what was inside it-- four swords, one gun, one guitar. He thought of fire being hidden somewhere behind the world in a similar way. He thought of fire lurking under--

\-- _fire behind him, scorching the back of his neck, the smell of gasoline, that particular whump of a gout of flame seizing on a new food source and growing to monstrous proportions_ \--

\--fire, the unsatisfiable hunger, a wild power lurking and waiting to strike; you’d be a fool to call it, but if you did, if you did--

\--The tip of the branch burst into flames with a shower of sparks. He started, nearly dropping it.

“Oh, excellent work!” said Evan, clapping. “You’re quite good at this. D’you think you have an affinity for fire?”

“How… how would I tell?” Roland stared at the twig. The fire was slowly crawling down its length.

“How did calling it make you feel? Was it easy? Did you like it? Did it feel right?”

The flames were growing closer, eating the twig up. “No,” said Roland.

“That’s probably not your affinity, then. So I wouldn’t try using it in a fight. It would just waste your energy. But I bet there’s something you do have an affinity for! Would you like to keep trying?”

“We should probably keep moving,” said Roland.

“Ah, yes!” Evan scrambled to clear up the site, though they hadn’t exactly done much to dirty it. Roland stared at the twig for a moment longer, at the heat that was threatening to scorch his fingers, before blowing it out, and tossing it into the nearby stream.

The mountains they were headed for looked less than inviting, great sand-scoured things that boded no good. He supposed he should enjoy this ramble through green countryside while it lasted. He supposed he should enjoy all of this while it lasted.

“Higgle!” The Higgledy jumped down onto Evan’s shoulder before scurrying ahead. Why was it trusting them so already? Then again, what harm could they do to it? And what right did he have to judge? He hadn’t been in this world six hours before signing on to a cause. Of course, his options had been limited, and he could always choose another route if something opened up, but still...

He shook his head. “You can do magic,” he sang softly. “You can have anything that you desire…”

“What was that?”

“Sorry.” Roland shook his head. “Just an old song. It’d be hard to explain.”

“I’d love to hear it sometime,” said Evan.

Roland shrugged, uncomfortable with the idea somehow. “There’s not much to it.”

“Still, it’s a song from your world,” said Evan. “You should sing them. How else will anyone ever get a chance to hear them?”

That was true. But… somehow, he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to share them. It felt… unwise. Dangerous.

His world seemed like a place that should be quarantined away.

“Could you sing again, sometime?” said Evan, hesitantly. “Once in a while?”

The song continued playing in his head, and he couldn't help but smile. _You know darn well when you cast your spell you will get your way…_ “Maybe,” he said. “Once in a while.”

\--


	3. Songbook 3 | Solid Rock

\--

Roland knew he was probably just dreaming all this, but at this point he was pretty sure the kid had some sort of charm magic going on. They hadn’t gone 48 hours between the sky pirates trying to kill them and declaring Evan their bloody _king_. And yes, this “kingmaker” was supposed to be magic, but… really? Seriously? What the hell?

He shouldn’t question his good luck, but he’d learned a long time ago just how important it was to look gift horses in the mouth.

He considered his options. He could dig around the base for clues, but there was only so much they were likely to tell him. Furthermore, he didn’t want to weaken their new and exceptionally convenient alliance. (He was definitely dreaming this.) Which was why he was sitting on a petrified log, strumming his guitar, and listening as best he could.

Still, he’d found there was usually a lot he could figure out on his own. Take the fact that all the pirates seemed to support this decision. In all their wandering through the base today, he’d seen exactly two people who seemed bothered by the prospect at all. The general mood was of excitement. This was an opportunity. This was a chance. Now, it was possible they just had that much pure faith in their leader, and sky pirates were probably less afraid of turbulence and change than the general population; but nonetheless.

If they were this happy to come along and follow Evan, it must surely mean they had a good reason to be.

“Good God, if ye think any harder yer brain’s gonna leak out your ears,” said Batu.

“Hasn’t happened yet.” He considered the man. Come to think of it, he’d dealt with his type. Usually mayors-- they didn’t tend to make it too far up the food chain-- bombastic, charismatic leaders who cared deeply for their people, and their people for them. Their powers didn’t seem to scale too well, so they usually reached some critical mass of adherents, but those adherents tended to stick with them to the grave. The “good ol’ boy” type. Which could go one of two ways, but Batu seemed the better of them.

“What’s eatin’ ya, anyway?”

The better of that type had certain weaknesses-- or strengths, depending on how you looked at them-- and one was a complete intolerance for bullshit. No obfuscation. No airs. No fancy words. Roland could work with that.

“I’m trying to figure out why a band of sky pirates would pull up posts and join a young boy in building the newest kingdom on the continent,” he said.

Batu laughed. He’d pegged him well enough for that, at least. “Ye don’t mince words, do ye, lad?”

“Sometimes I do,” Roland admitted. He suspected it was one of the most obvious facts about him; lying now would just get him into trouble later. “But I think you’re the type who prefers to get straight to the point.”

“That I am. An’ I’m bettin’ ye won’t be satisfied ‘til ye have an answer, eh?”

Roland shrugged. “I’m that kind of guy.”

“An’ ye’ve got your King to think about. Especially as he’s such a wee mite. Come to think on it, I’d think less of ye if ye didn’t want to know.”

“So what’s the story?”

Batu sat down beside him; Roland shifted a little to give the man room. He had quite the set of shoulders to accommodate. “I got a couple’a reasons,” said Batu. “A lot of things all leadin’ me the same way.”

Roland slowed his fingers on the strings, listening attentively.

“First is, piracy en’t as good a gig as it used to be,” said Batu. “Days were, ye could make a decent livin’ at it. But there’s fewer an’ fewer big shipments an’ more an’ more bastards abusin’ Trip Door.”

Roland had wondered how the use of magic was altering the transportation systems here. There was a highly noticeable lack of roads.

“Then there’s the bloody wyverns,” sighed Batu. “They en’t gonna give up. Not ‘less we kill ‘em all. An’ that’s a tall order. Not to mention a little too bloody, even for a pirate.”

Considering how near they’d seemed to come to being killed just for trespassing, not to mention his world’s extensive history of people shedding a lot of blood for extremely little, Roland took that one with a grain of salt.

“It’s a constant fight wi’ the bastards,” said Batu. “They believe the place belongs to ‘em. Well, yeah, it used to. But they think it always will. I think it’s summin’ religious. They en’t ever gonna give up.”

Religious? The wyverns had _religion_? Well, they also talked, and clearly had rituals and adorned themselves--

Son of a bitch. Roland wasn’t overly concerned about the ethics of fighting them, since the ones they saw never presented them with much of a choice, but if he was actually participating in this world’s first wave of colonialism, he was going to throw himself off a cliff now and save himself the trouble. “So, when you say there’s no one in this plain--”

“Nah, en’t gonna make that mistake twice. Nobody owns it. Nobody’s got any kind of base there. Might have a tribe or two of Whamsters what pass through…”

Roland hoped he would not regret it, but try as he might, he could not bring himself to be overly concerned about the Whamsters.

“It’s a constant fight just to try an’ keep ‘em away,” said Batu, “an’ it’s exhausting. It’s all we do, these days. Harder an’ harder to get the time to pillage less an’ less. We can’t do it forever. We can’t do it much longer. An’ half of ‘em know it. It’s no way to live. ‘Specially for those as got families.”

Roland noticed that he was still strumming faintly. _Take a look at that; I made a castle in the sand._ He considered stopping, but Batu hadn’t said anything, and sometimes people found it soothing. Batu had gone quiet, in fact; Roland followed his gaze to Tani. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to put the pieces together there.

“An’ there’s Tani,” said Batu. “Gel’s smart as a whip, she is. Smarter’n her old man. Has her mother’s fire. She’s somethin’ special. Too special for a band o’pirates runnin’ out of pots to piss in. An’ she’ll figure that out, soon enough. She’ll want more. She needs more.”

“And you’re hoping we can provide that?”

“If not,” said Batu, “you en’t gonna keep her, either.”

He watched her, wending her way about the populace like one of the better governors. No, they wouldn’t; not for long.

“Had it all planned out,” said Batu. “We were gonna run it all together, her an’ me. I’ve been carryin’ on without her, but I’m half o’what we woulda been. An’ it isn’t enough.”

Well. That feeling-- that was one he knew entirely too well. 

“Still don’t feel whole,” said Batu, very quietly. “Comin’ on ten years, now, an’ it all still feels wrong. I _needed_ her for this. Dunno what mess I’m gettin’ into bumbling along without her.”

That also hit entirely too close to home. “I was hoping it would get better. But it doesn’t, does it? And even when it does-- there’s that moment you realize, that you’re getting along without her, and that hurts even worse. You shouldn’t be able to get along without her. It shouldn’t be possible. But there isn’t a choice.”

He closed his mouth. He hadn’t intended to say so much, but-- it was so exactly the same pain.

“You lost a wife too, did you?”

“Yeah,” Roland sighed. He stared out into the canyon, and they were quiet for a minute, except for the faint melody on the guitar. _If I realized that the chances were slim, how come I’m so surprised when the tide rolls in?_

“I coulda tried for it meself, y’know,” said Batu. “Right near the cradle an’ all. But I never did. I said we didn’t need a kingmaker. We weren’t no kingdom. But I was afraid. Afraid of leavin’ Tani by her lonesome if I didn’ make it. Afraid I wouldn’t pass the trials. Afraid they’d leave when they figgered that out.”

Roland nodded, still playing. _A house of cards was never made for shock. You can blow it down in any kind of weather._

“I’m a chief, an’ I’m a damn good chief,” said Batu, “but I en’t no king. Not like yer boy is. An’ we can’t get by with just a chief anymore. We can’t keep livin’ like this, scramblin’ all the time to keep ourselves together. We need a real base. We need a real kingdom. We need a real king.”

“And you’re choosing Evan?”

“He got ‘imself a kingmaker, didn’t he? En’t just anyone can do that. En’t a lotta kingmakers out there, either. Mebbe it’s a small one, but it’s still a kingmaker. Some of us remember what that means.”

Roland wondered if this power, this authority, were magical, religious, or both. He was very loath to risk bringing up the topic of religion, though. Perhaps he’d find out for himself soon enough. 

“‘Sides, I’ve seen worse ‘uns in my time. Boy’s got spirit. Got a vision, too. He makes you want to follow ‘im. An’ that’s a great power, an’ a rare one. I dunno if it’ll get ‘im everythin’ he’s hopin’ for. I dunno about this uniting the world business. But it’s gonna get ‘im somewhere, an’ it’s gonna get ‘im somewhere good. I want in.”

He grinned suddenly. “‘Sides, who else is gonna take in such a band o’ reprobates, anyway?”

Roland laughed. He wasn’t going to verbally agree, but he couldn’t imagine many established leaders willing to take a band of sky pirates under their wing, no. “I see. It makes a lot more sense to me now, thank you.”

“Good, good.” Batu stood. “Got a feelin’ it’s not only Evan what’s special, y’know. Yer not as good at hidin’ as you think.”

Well, politics always was a balancing act-- being noticed when you wanted to be, eluding notice when you didn’t. As President, the balance had shifted rather strongly toward the former.

“So what’s brought you on, eh?” said Batu. “You look to be a canny dog. Lots of things a young fellow like you could be doing.”

Young? Right, right. That was one reason he was keeping the ponytail; it was a good reminder that he was… travelling incognito. “Lots of things you could be doing,” he countered.

“Aye, but yer clearly not family, an’ you’re clever enough you could make yourself all sorts of chances,” said Batu. “What’s makin’ you take this one?”

Roland looked down at the guitar. _I’m sick of potential. I’m sick of vanity._ “Because I think you’re right,” he said. “I think Evan’s going to create something big, here. Something important. And I want to help.” He sighed. “I want it to go _right_ , this time.”

“Well, I think we got a shot at it,” said Batu. “Don’t let us down, eh?”

He walked away without waiting for an answer. Just as well; that was one promise he wasn’t sure he could make with a straight face. 

He seemed to have a talent for coming up with ever more impressive and improbable ways to let people down.

This was going to be all right. This wasn’t even real. He was going to take a back seat and let Evan drive. He was going to take all those myriad failures and pass the lessons forward, so they wouldn’t have to make those mistakes again.

If they were going to build a kingdom, he was going to be sure that the foundation was solid.

\--


	4. Songbook 4 | The Only Thing a Gambler Needs

\--

It wasn’t, he supposed, his first inkling that this world was not entirely idyllic. He’d appeared in the middle of an armed coup attempting to assassinate a pre-teen king. He’d been taken hostage by a group of sky-pirates. But something about Goldpaw…. Gambling, corruption, grift, petty thuggery… from the naivete of most here, he’d thought this realm might be free of it.

He still wasn’t sure where the hell he was. Too troubled for heaven, too bucolic for hell. Too dreamlike to be real and too real to be a dream. He was proceeding under the assumption that all was as it seemed until proven otherwise, since that seemed to be the optimal play under almost any circumstances, but he didn’t really believe it.

He didn’t know what to believe.

He smiled a little as he recognized the chords he was plucking. “There is a house in New Orleans,” he sang softly. “They call the Rising Sun. It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy, and God, I know I’m one.”

“Ugh, I can’t wait ‘til we see the back of this place,” said Tani, throwing herself down on the chair. Roland considered informing her that it wasn’t polite to barge into someone else’s room in the inn, but she was probably well aware of that already. 

“Why would that be?”

“Please,” Tani scoffed. “As if ye don’t know. I seen you scowling at everyone in the casinos. An’ what’s that you’re playin’, eh?”

He smiled a little. The girl was proving cannier than he’d given her credit for. He’d give her this. “My mother was a tailor,” he sang. “She sewed my new blue jeans. My father was a gambling man, down in New Orleans.”

“I knew it.” She tilted her head. “What’s blue jeans?”

“A kind of trousers,” he said.

She nodded. “That en’t something you wrote, is it?”

“Nah. It’s a popular old song where I’m from.” He kept playing the tune. “It’s an old story.”

“I just bet.” She scowled. “What’s with all this gambling here? Why’s it allowed?”

“Is Batu back in the casino again?”

“Rrgh!” She punched a pillow, which he took as confirmation. “Why can’t he see it’s all tricks? Why’s he keep gettin’ gulled by the same old bleedin’ things?”

Roland decided it would probably be a bad idea to sing the next verse. _Now the only thing a gambler needs is a suitcase and a trunk..._

“People find it exciting,” he said instead. “For some people, it’s just the adrenaline rush.” Stupid. She wouldn’t have any idea what the hell adrenaline was, and he sure couldn’t explain it. “It’s what my people call the feeling when you’re-- winning a race, or or a fight, and you’re excited because you’ve won, because you’re still alive.”

“He doesn’t half like that,” she muttered.

“And there’s other things, too. Like… when you don’t have anything. When you don’t have any hope that hard work will get you a way out of the bad circumstances you’re in. The hope that the dice will fall your way and you’ll win big enough to fix everything can be the only hope you have.”

“Shouldn’t be allowed,” she muttered, sulking into the chair.

“Does this happen a lot?”

“Feh! Wasn’t much gamblin’ in the sky pirates. Few cardsharps, I s’pose. None who’d do a mate any harm. But a mort ‘o tricksters an’ thieves.” She looked away. “That’s how all our trouble with the wyverns got started. Bloke sold my da a deed to a spot in the mountains. Only he didn’t buy it off the wyverns first.”

Roland winced. “I’d been wondering. I thought you’d just moved in on your own.”

“Well, we did. Finders keepers. But it was always like that. Some new weasel would come on with a new story. Great load of apples here. Great chance to take a wheat shipment there. Lie after lie after lie. I learned to sniff ‘em out. I had to. He never did.”

Roland sighed. “It isn’t all a bad thing. Trusting people can do a lot for you. It’s probably why he was able to lead the group he did.”

“An’ it’s why everything was always on the edge of fallin’ apart.” She scowled, turning away. “I thought it’d change, now. Maybe it’s never gonna change.”

There wasn’t much he could say to that. He closed his eyes against a problem he couldn’t solve. “Oh, mothers, tell your children not to do what I have done. Spend your lives in sin and misery, in the house of the rising sun.”

He looked up; she was silent, still frowning at the window, at all Goldpaw’s glittering lights. He was afraid to let Evan delve too deeply into the darker alleyways. He wasn’t sure what they might find there.

“I’ve got one foot on the platform,” he sang. “The other on the train. I’m going back to New Orleans, to wear that ball and chain.”

“You hate it too, don’t you?” said Tani.

“You can’t stop people from enjoying themselves as they see fit,” said Roland. “But I’ve… seen gambling ruin too many people’s lives. I’ve seen too many cheaters manipulate desperate people for their own profits.”

“You can’t say you hate it here ‘cos we’re tryin’ to make a new ally,” said Tani, sending a sharp-eyed glance his way. “But you hate it too.”

“It’d be best if you didn’t tell anyone that you hate it, either,” said Roland.

“Course not. I en’t that big a fool. But tell me. Just between us.”

It went against all Roland’s instincts, but-- “Yes. I hate it too.”

She let out a relieved sigh. “En’t just me, then. Well, your secret’s safe with me.”

“And yours with me,” said Roland. “If you ever need to complain about Goldpaw--”

“U OWE ME! U OWE ME!”

“Ugh,” said Tani, running a hand through her hair. “I will _kill_ him. _Batu!_ ”

Roland watched her run out of the room, and reaffirmed his mental commitment that there would never be a casino in Evermore.

\--


	5. Songbook 5 | Who Am I to Disagree

\--

“You look so pensive,” said Evan.

He supposed he was. ‘Dreamer’s Doors’? Really? Was this his subconscious restating the obvious, or was Mossad screwing with him? (Nah. Mossad had bigger problems.) “I just find that place kind of… unsettling.”

“It was difficult to navigate, and a little frightening,” said Evan. “Maybe we should save it for a little later…”

“Agreed,” said Roland.

“But it sounded awfully important, and there were some interesting things there. We should definitely try to do it, I think.”

Roland nodded. His mind was already providing a soundtrack. _Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree?_

“Anyway, let’s go get this scrubber back to Auntie Martha.”

Roland couldn’t help but look back at the door on his way out. A door standing stark in the middle of a cave. It felt… oddly familiar. Or maybe his mind was playing tricks on itself. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Roland?” 

“Yes?”

“What d’you think she meant about blindly following the requests of strangers?” said Evan, a bit timidly.

_I’ve traveled the world and the seven seas. Everybody’s looking for something…_

“Well, people want a lot of different things,” said Roland. “Some of them are dangerous… like if someone wanted something from one of those dragons.” He nodded at one of the creatures he could see on the hills. “And you’re only getting one side of the story.”

“One side of the story?”

“Say someone comes up to you and says he lost his watch,” said Roland. “You find it, but the person who has it says it was stolen from them months ago, and they just happened to come across it in the street.”

“I guess I’d go back to the first person, and ask if he bought the watch recently,” Evan said, looking like he was concentrating hard.

“He says no, he bought it five years ago, and he has the paperwork to prove it.”

“Then I suppose I’d find the person with the watch again--”

“Assuming you can--”

“--and find out if there was some kind of mistake…”

“Say you can get them both in a room. They’re both absolutely certain it’s their watch.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Evan.

“Aye, ‘t happens all the time,” said Batu. “Tuck it behind yer back an’ see which of ‘em can describe it.”

“Or keep it yourself an’ see who complains loudest,” suggested Tani.

The King Solomon approach. He doubted that worked as well with material goods, given the many reasons people had to value them. “Anyway, you get the idea. Sometimes, when you take on other people’s troubles, you get a lot more trouble than you bargained for.”

“But still,” said Evan. “When it’s possible, it’s the right thing to do. And it makes people happy.”

“Sometimes, it takes a lot to make people happy,” said Roland. “Sometimes, nothing will. And sometimes, people want things that aren’t actually good for them.”

Evan frowned.

Roland considered possible examples, and, taking Evan’s age into account, decided to go with a pretty safe bet. “Ever eaten a whole cake?”

“Oh…” Evan looked thoughtful. “I suppose that’s true. But… that’s not always the case. Sometimes people want things they can’t get for themselves, and they’re willing to give you more than enough in return. Look at this. Auntie Martha might come to our kingdom, just for a dish-scrubber. Certainly that’s more than worth it!”

“That’s true enough,” Roland agreed. “It isn’t that it’s a bad idea. It just isn’t always a good idea.”

“And--” Evan struggled for words. “I like it.”

“Eh?” said Tani.

“Doing nice things for people. Making them happy. Worrying about their problems instead of my own. Even when it’s a lot of work, it’s still…”

Roland smiled. He certainly knew that feeling. “A change of trouble is as good as a vacation, they say.”

Evan brightened. “Yes, that’s it exactly!”

“Can’t say as I ever heard that one,” said Batu.

“I come from an exceptionally strange place,” said Roland, with a wry smile.

“Is that why you never seem bothered by helping us, Roland?” said Evan, thoughtfully. “It’s a change of trouble?”

Roland closed his eyes. Not entirely dissimilar troubles, but-- simpler troubles, in a simpler world, the fault for which could not be laid at his door. A world he hardly even believed was real in the first place. “Yeah,” he said. “You don’t need to worry about me. This is the biggest vacation I’ve ever been on.”

Tani scoffed. “You don’t act it.”

“You should see me at home,” said Roland.

“Wouldn’t that be a sight,” said Tani. “Does everyone wear those funny outfits?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s so funny about… no, that’s formal wear.”

“Huh!” Tani laughed at the thought. “Think we can visit sometime?”

Roland tried not to visibly wince at the thought of the chaos that would ensue. The biologists who would want to get their hands on a grimalkin. The physicists who would want to study and harness magic. The armies who would instantly plunge the world into chaos if they ever got wind of an arms band. Christ. All his years of practice probably wasn’t gonna keep _this_ reaction off his face.

“We don’t really know the way,” said Evan, sympathetically. Ah, good, he’d taken it as sorrow instead. He could work with that. “But we’ll find you a way back someday. And maybe then…?”

“We’ll see,” said Roland, because even if it was never going to happen, he didn’t dare risk encouraging them to visit. 

“I’m sorry we haven’t been looking harder…” Evan looked down. “We just haven’t had time, and there’s so much to do, and… I’m not sure what we’d do without you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Roland. _Some of them want to get used by you._ “I’m here because I want to be. Just like everyone else.”

Evan looked at them, and nodded. “All right,” he said.

Easily convinced, but Roland didn’t want a fight on this. He didn’t want to question it. He didn’t want to think about it. 

“But… thank you,” said Evan. “Thank you all.”

“Nothin’ to thank us for,” said Batu. “He’s right. We’re here ‘cos we chose to be.”

But he’d be grateful anyway, Roland knew, because you simply couldn’t help it. The trust that people placed in you… it could be overwhelming. Terrifying. Or worse, you could get used to it. Then no matter how you tried to remind yourself that you were fallible, to stay humble, you set out to remake the world as you saw fit, to enact your shared vision. Only to realise too late that the vision wasn’t shared by everyone. Only to realise too late you’d missed something enormous. Only to realise too late that you’d failed, and everyone who’d trusted you-- everyone who hadn’t, even-- was going to pay a price beyond imagining.

He couldn’t stop to think about it. He didn’t want to think about any personal needs or desires, because the last thing he deserved was to have them fulfilled. He didn’t want to think about himself or his world or his past. He wanted problems, fights, responsibilities, to wrap tightly around the wound like a tourniquet, or else the wild gushing of blood from it would surely end him.

_Some of them want to be abused._

“Anyway,” said Roland, “we still have a pot-scrubber to deliver, don’t we?”

“Oh! Of course!” Evan took off down the path, flustered, and Roland thought of a sunny day in the park, between episodes, bodyguards out of sight and his wife by his side--

He pushed it down _hard_ and ran after his king, lest the monsters catch him unawares.

\--


	6. Songbook 6 | The Song That Doesn’t End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the one with the flash-forward at the end.
> 
> Also, apologies to any Niall fans, but I was not one.

\--

"Evan, lad, ye've got to help me! I've been cursed!"

"Cursed?" Evan stopped as Niall plucked at his sleeves. "What's happened?"

"I was just working in the lumberyard, minding me own business, when I heard it! This _song_!"

"A... song?"

"Aye! I went to listen closer, an' that's how it hooked me! You've got ta find the wee scamp who was singing it! It'll do us all in!"

"All right," said Evan, perplexed, but convinced by the gravity with which Niall was viewing the situation. "What did he look like?"

“A wee dogfolk lad! Orange shirt and red trousers!”

“All right,” said Evan. Evermore wasn’t big enough that the boy should be too hard to find. “But I’m not sure I understand what the problem is?”

“It’s a cursed song, boy! A cursed song!”

“How can a song be cursed?”

“If I sing it at ye, it’ll have you too! Just-- just find the lad! See if he knows how to break it!”

“...All right,” said Evan. “I’ll do my best.”

“An’ stop him from cursin’ anyone else!”

Well, it certainly wasn’t the oddest request Evan had undertaken, and he felt it his kingly duty to do rounds of the kingdom anyway. He started with the lumberyards, since he was nearby and they were conveniently in a bit of a corner anyway, but the boy wasn’t still there. Nor at the spellworks. Nor the weaponry, though he did stop to buy Tani a new bow. 

He’d begun to have some doubts he’d ever find the culprit, when he spotted a flash of orange on his way to the Higgledry. “Excuse me!” he called.

“I’ve got to--” The boy turned. Yes, a young dogfolk boy, with mottled brown ears. “Oh! King Evan!” He bowed. “W-what can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering,” said Evan, “have you heard anything about a cursed song?”

The boy frowned. “A cursed song?”

“Niall says he heard someone singing a cursed song over by the lumberyard,” Evan explained. “I don’t know exactly why, but he thinks it was--”

“Oh, oh no!” The boy jumped back. “Does he hate me now? I wasn’t thinking! I didn’t mean to, honest! I just-- I just-- waaa!”

Evan reached forward, taking the boy’s shoulder to comfort him. “It’s all right! I’m sure it’s all right! Just tell me-- what happened?”

“I… I like to watch the work at the lumberyard,” said the boy, blinking back tears. “That’s what I want to be someday! But Niall says they don’t have room for apprentices yet. So I watch, sometimes. And the other day, I wasn’t even thinking, I sung this song I heard over by the hunting lodge… I didn’t mean anything by it! It just got stuck in my head!”

“Over by the hunting lodge?” Evan frowned. “And it’s a cursed song?”

“I-- I don’t know! But I think that’s got to be what he’s talking about! It’s about a song that doesn’t end. And some people start singing it without realising, and they can’t ever stop, because it doesn’t end, right? It just starts over from the beginning.” 

“Oh. I suppose I can see why Niall would think that it’s cursed.” Evan tilted his head. “You aren’t singing it, though.”

“No, I stopped,” said the boy. “You know. Just in the middle. It’s really hard to get out of your head, though.”

“Hmm.” Evan frowned thoughtfully. “And you say you heard it by the hunting lodge? D’you know who was singing it?”

The boy shook his head vigorously. “I didn’t see him! But it definitely sounded like a man. An adult man too, I think? His voice wasn’t really really deep, but it didn’t sound like a boy’s either, y’know?”

“Well, that’s something,” said Evan. “When did it happen?”

“Three or four nights ago, I think?”

“All right. Please let me know if you remember anything else.”

“I will, Your Majesty!” The boy bowed and hurried away.

Well. The next step was the hunting lodge, then. Batu was there, and Khumbish too; the others must be away right now. Obviously it hadn’t been Batu, if the boy had any doubt it had been an adult man, but he’d probably know everything that went on around here. “Hello, Batu!”

“Good afternoon, yer majesty. What brings you around here?”

“It’s strange,” Evan said, a little embarrassed, “but I was wondering. Have you heard anyone… singing around here? A few nights ago?”

“Singing?” Batu frowned. “Can’t say as I have. Then, I don’t always stick around here at night. Try to get my work done in the mornin’.”

“Oh,” Evan sighed. He should have known that.

“What’s this about?”

“I’ve got a mystery on my hands,” said Evan.

“Well, then, there’s the man you want,” said Batu, and nodded at something behind him. Evan turned; Roland was walking toward them.

“You’re absolutely right,” said Evan, cheering up immediately. “Hello, Roland!”

“Your majesty.” Roland nodded respectfully. “Were you talking about me?”

“Well, not really, but I was hoping you could help me with something. Have you heard anything about a cursed song?”

Roland frowned. “No. Why do you ask?”

“Niall says he’s been cursed by a song and he’s terrified,” said Evan. “I found the boy he heard it from, and he says he heard it out by the hunting guild. So I’m trying to find anyone who would have been there in the last few days to see if they know anything about it.”

“It’s a small town, but that might be a tall order,” said Roland. “And if someone did it deliberately, or if they’re embarrassed, they might not be willing to just admit it.”

Evan sighed. “Why would someone do such a thing?”

“Well, like I said, it was probably either a deliberate prank, or just an accident. Did Niall say why he thought the song was cursed?”

“It’s stuck in his head,” said Evan.

“There’s a _lot_ of songs that will do _that_. In my world, too. No magic involved.”

“That’s certainly true. Something about the words to it, though?”

“The words?”

“The boy told me… ‘this is the song that doesn’t end’? Some people start singing it without realising, and then they go on singing it forever?”

“Sounds like a children’s song to me,” said Roland.

“Not one I’ve ever heard before… but it does, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe this is all a misunderstanding.”

“I think that’s what I’ll tell him,” Evan decided. “The poor boy really wants to work in the lumberyards. If Niall’s frightened or angry at him, it will break his heart.”

“Well, Niall’s a reasonable person, isn’t he?” said Roland. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Thank you, Roland,” said Evan. “You always know just what to do.”

“I do my best,” said Roland, and smiled.

Even looked back for just a moment; he had a vague feeling he might have missed something. But Roland was talking to Batu about the monthly totals, while Batu groaned at the prospect of actual maths, so he smiled and continued onward, grateful he had the backup of such a wise and clever man.

\--

Years in the future (but not many)...

\--

The daily rounds, Doloran suspected, could be going better. He had little to compare it with, and they were only just beginning, but the finance minister looked incredibly unimpressed.

“Well, I don’t know about this at all,” said Niall, glaring at Doloran.

“I told you, he’s reformed,” said Evan. “Besides, there’s a lot he could teach us. And with Roland gone…” He sighed. He didn’t like remembering that Roland was gone.

“Yeah, says the people who let the snake in, not knowin’ what it was--” He clapped his hands to his ears. “Aargh! That cursed song’s stuck in my head again!”

“Try listening to something else,” suggested Evan. “I heard Sin-Gul practising earlier--”

“Aye, that I will!” Niall hurried away.

Doloran frowned. “Song? What is he going on about?”

“Oh, he heard some song that gets stuck in ‘is head sometimes an’ he thinks it’s cursed,” scoffed Tani.

“I’ve never been able to figure out what happened,” said Evan. “Maybe you could figure it out? There was a dogfolk boy who heard this song near the hunting lodge. I’m sure he’s telling the truth; he was absolutely terrified when he thought Niall might take offense. But he didn’t know who he heard it from, and I never found anyone else who heard it, either. I know it was a man, and I think not a baritone. I think it was just a children’s song, really, it sounds pretty silly, it’s just _catching_...”

Doloran smiled, slowly. “So it was an ultimately harmless but exceptionally well-aimed prank that proved entirely impossible to trace, despite the kingdom’s limited number of residents at the time?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t have bothered asking. It’s been such a long time… We’ll probably never know who did it.”

“On the contrary,” said Doloran. “It was Roland.”

“What?!” Evan was taken aback. 

“It was the perfect crime. Only one person in Evermore at that time could possibly have committed the perfect crime.”

“Oi!”

Doloran inclined his head. “Fair point, Tani. However, the amount of subtlety involved here is significant. With all due respect, particularly at that stage of your life, you’d just have stabbed him.”

“There is that.” Tani shrugged.

“Furthermore, who else would know a children’s song you’ve been utterly unable to trace? Surely a man who grew up in another world is the most likely candidate.”

Evan shook his head, unable to deny the logic. “But why would he do such a thing?”

“Evan!” Niall stuck his head through the doorway. “I just got this amazing letter from a desert prince who needs our help claimin’ his inheritance!”

“Cor, you’re right,” said Tani, with a whistle. “It was _definitely_ Roland.”

Evan shook his head. “Niall, we’ve told you, those letters are lies!”

“But what if this one isn’t?! Think of the opportunity!”

“I have difficulty comprehending the iron restraint my counterpart clearly possessed,” said Doloran.

“Niall, just…” Evan struggled for words. “Just, no!”

“Pah!” Niall stormed away.

“Let me guess,” said Doloran. “The idea to differentiate the kingdom’s currency from the common currency also came from Roland?”

“He said something about stimulating the local economy, and a ‘safety net’,” said Evan.

“These were both perfectly true, but he omitted the additional justification that it would also limit any damage Niall could possibly do.”

Evan put his head in his hand. “But why would he let Niall be finance minister if he distrusted him? He never said anything about it!”

“Well, the fact that your economy _hasn’t_ entirely collapsed means that his foolishness does not extend into his handling of money,” said Doloran, “though I can’t fathom how that could be. Then-- what were the circumstances of his appointment in the first place?”

“He volunteered,” said Evan. “Batu said he’d be good at it as well. I was surprised he was willing to leave his forest to help us, but…”

“So making a fuss over it could have caused trouble with Batu, possibly Goldpaw as well given their relationship, angered the owner of the largest lumber resource on the continent, and left said resource as a potential rival.”

“Oh,” said Evan, his ears drooping.

“He appears to be perfectly good at his job… somehow… but it’s worth keeping his retirement in mind.” Doloran paused. “Wasn’t the only thing you would have known about him at that point the fact that he’d lost his entire forest in a game of chance?”

Evan’s ears drooped further.

Doloran shook his head. “And yet you’ve persisted. This may sound like self-flattery, and perhaps it is, but your Chief Consul was the most skilled politician this continent has ever seen.”

“I take serious exception to that,” said Evan. “What of the other continents?”

“Fair enough,” said Doloran, and smiled.

“Don’t think much of yourself, do you?” Tani snorted.

“On the contrary. The realisation that I was not the more clever of the two of us remains the second sharpest blow my ego has ever received. However, I’m confident I can catch up.”

“Ugh.” Tani shook her head. “Someone’s gonna need to take you down a peg.”

“You should practise. Who knows? It might be you.” 

“Maybe it will!” Tani jumped up, grumbling to herself as she followed Evan on his rounds.

Doloran looked away for a moment, shaking his head. “All right,” he muttered, “I take back half of them. But _only_ half. You utter fiend.”

“Doloran?”

“Coming!”

\--


	7. Songbook 7 | What Tortures Me

\--

Evan stared at the cell door. “Well,” he said, “I suppose this is what we wanted… wasn’t it…?”

Roland passed a hand over his face. For some reason, probably the impromptu skit, he was finding it more difficult to take this seriously than usual. “We’re in the jailhouse now,” he sang under his breath. “We’re in the jailhouse now…”

Lofty swatted him. Roland only noticed because he happened to be looking down at the time, which only annoyed the Kingmaker further. “All accordin’ to plan!”

“I can’t believe our _plan_ was to get _arrested_ ,” said Tani.

“I didn’ see _you_ complainin’!”

“I fought the law and the law won,” Roland sang to himself. “I fought the law and the law won.”

“I was hopin’ it’d be a bit less… solid,” said Batu. “This place was built by summat knew what they were doin’.”

Batu was likely to be an expert. “I hear that train a’-comin, it’s rolling down the bend, and I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when; I’m stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps draggin’ on…”

“Oi! How many songs about gaol d’they flippin’ have in youer world?!”

“More,” said Roland.

“I shouldn’t wonder!” Lofty kept attempting to smack him and hitting mostly trouser.

Roland tried to resist the urge to keep baiting him, but couldn’t think of a good enough reason not to. He had, after all, literally just landed them all in prison. If not now, when? “When I was just a baby, my mama told me son, always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns--”

“Obviously you didna listen!”

“But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die…”

“That’s terrible!” said Evan.

“Eh, it’s just a story, lad,” said Batu. “An’ criminals come up wi’all sorts of porkers, ‘specially in gaol. Braggin’, y’see?”

Batu was, in fact, an expert. Sometimes it was easy to forget he’d been a pirate. But Roland wasn’t going to pry. “When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry.”

“Youer gonna when I’m through with ya,” Lofty threatened.

Roland smirked, leaning back against the cell bars and looking away. “I bet there's rich folks eating in a fancy dining car. They're probably drinkin' coffee and smoking big cigars.”

“What’s a--”

“I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free,” Roland sang, and that struck a chord within him. “But those people keep a-movin’, and that’s what tortures me…”

 _I know I had it coming._ It was his failure. His responsibility. He’d-- how many of the misdeeds of the past had he let lie silent? How many wrongs had he ignored because it wasn’t politically expedient? 

Had this disaster happened despite his best efforts, or because of them?

He couldn’t know. He didn’t even know who’d done it, though he certainly had a few shrewd guesses. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know how many. He didn’t know anything, and he was stuck here, studiously ignoring the fact that his people were dying and there was nothing he could do. It was reprehensible. But what good would dwelling on it do?

Besides, maybe staying away was the best thing he could do for them. It wasn’t as if his efforts so far had done anyone any good.

And yet, without him-- how would the world continue? Mendez had always been intimidated by servicemen, and Admiral Wallace would run right over him. Assuming DC was even still standing; who knew if it had been only one strike? The army would be baying for blood, the _country_ would be baying for blood, and the destruction of a city, the murder of a sitting president-- that couldn’t be let slide. 

At best, they’d be at long and bloody war. At worst-- nuclear armageddon.

He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t do anything about it. And it was his fault. His death. His failures. His own.

And here he was, living in a dream world, building someone else’s kingdom… A kinder fate than he deserved. 

Roland shut his eyes and reminded himself that he was almost certainly dead, and the real world was moving on without him, beyond his power to return to or control. Focus on the dream. Focus on what he could actually do. Focus on Evan.

A door opened down the hall; Roland turned to look at their visitors. Flanked by guards was a bespectacled blond man, immaculate, dignified, whom one’s eyes wanted to slide right over despite his flawless presentation.

The man was either bad at his job, or very, very good. Roland settled back and waited to see which it would be.

\--


	8. Songbook 8 | Of Our Own Device

\--

Roland was going to get a visitor. The only question was when. It hadn't been earlier in the throne room; he wasn't surprised. Even empty, it was a public area, and Leander struck him as a man who valued discretion. There'd be a chance tomorrow, but Leander struck him as a man who valued expediency. He suspected it was going to be tonight--

Yes, there was the knock at the door. "Come in," he called. 

Leander's head poked through the door. "I hope I'm not disturbing you." 

"Not at all. Just trying to get the hang of this thing." He nodded at the guitar in his lap. "I can put it away." 

"No need. We value music highly in Hydropolis." 

"We were thinking we might manage a concert hall in the next round of building." 

"Perhaps you'll be able to lure a musician here. I can think of one or two in town… Though some haven't played in some time." 

"Sounds like our kind of people." Roland smiled wryly, idly picking out the tune. He'd just started to get it down, and he didn't want to lose it. If he could play it, maybe it would get the hell out of his head. 

"It's been some time since I was able to attend a concert," said Leander, and sighed. 

"I hope that isn't what you came here for. You'd be in for a very substandard show." 

Leander inclined his head. "Steering directly for the point, as usual." 

"Bad habit of mine." 

"All right, I shall get down to it," said Leander. "I am aware of King Evan's history. Batu and Tani have told me all about the sky pirates. This leaves me with one question I have been unable to get a satisfactory answer for. Exactly who on earth are you?" 

Roland looked down at the guitar. "I find it amazing how few people ask me that." 

"You've a trusting populace here in Evermore," said Leander, "and you are astonishingly good at deflecting the question." 

"No one ever asks." 

"Which diverts the conversation as well as distracting with an implied compliment." 

"It's also the truth." 

"Which speaks even more highly of your skill," said Leander. "You've been in politics all your life." 

"The vast majority of it," Roland acknowledged. 

"And yet no one has heard of you." 

"I'm not from around here," said Roland. "But Evan would have told you that." 

"Yes, he claimed you were a king from another world who mysteriously and conveniently appeared in his room just in time to save him from a murderous coup." 

"That's about the sum of it." 

"I find this somewhat difficult to credit," said Leander, who had clearly also been in politics all his life.

"I'm expecting an answer to how exactly I got here to come up at the most inconvenient possible time," said Roland. "It's incredibly suspicious. Too absurd to be coincidence." 

"I suppose that much is indisputable," mused Leander. "Even as young as he is, King Evan would be experienced enough with magic to detect the presence of most conventional spells. It's the question of how you appeared, and where from, that are more murky." 

"And you know better than to simply take my word for it," said Roland. "Don't take that as offense. It's completely rational. I wouldn't believe me either." 

"Couched again in compliments," said Leander. "Indeed you were no minor official. I could well credit you as a King. But of what kingdom?" 

Roland sighed. "The United States of America." 

"I've never heard of such a place." 

"No one here has. I suspect it's another world entirely." 

"Well, I suppose it's of little importance." 

Roland looked at him, surprised. He'd expected far more questioning on that front. The man looked almost as if he had _expected_ that answer.

Leander adjusted his glasses. "The question of true import is, why are you here?" 

"I have no idea how I got here." 

“That's not the question,” said Leander. “The question is why you remain. The question is why you are chief consul of a fledgling kingdom fighting for what I fear I can only describe as a hopeless cause. You could have hired out your services. You could have founded a realm of your own. You could be pursuing a way to return to this home of yours. Instead, you are here. And the question of truly vital import is, why?”

Roland looked down at the guitar, and started the melody from the top. “I will tell you this in confidence, and I will rely upon your discretion.”

Leander nodded. Roland suspected he would only keep that promise if he believed what he heard, but that didn't matter. 

"I was a President in a troubled realm," he said. "Hundreds of-- kingdoms-- all shifting in alliances. Warring with each other, warring within themselves. I did all I could to put out the fires, to bank them. Until the day I arrived here." 

He looked up at Leander, gauging if he was telling the tale intelligibly. The man's face was inscrutable, but not confused. He continued. "The day I arrived here," he said, “I saw a weapon take out half my kingdom.”

Well, he wasn't at all sure on the numbers. It depended on the payload; it depended how much radiation you were comfortable with tolerating; it depended how many missiles had hit home. Close enough. 

"I'm honestly not sure this isn't a dream," he continued. "I'm not sure I'm not just dead." He also still wasn't ruling out particularly creative KGB interrogation, but that was neither here nor there. "All I know is that I'm here now. I don't know how to get back. I don't know how to discover how to get back. I don't know if there's anything left to return to." 

He wasn't sure Leander's expression was credulous, but it wasn't unsympathetic. "I'm here because I don't know where else to go. I'm here because I believe in what Evan is doing. I'm here because I've seen what happens when kingdoms don't unite. Maybe it's hopeless, maybe it's impossible. But the consequences of not trying are much, much worse."

He looked back down at his guitar. "My kingdom may need me, if anyone in it still lives, if I would still live if I returned. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid of seeing the broken shell of what it was once I return. And I am telling you this because I know you will understand that." 

He didn't look at the man's face. The minister of a kingdom that had run from its own fate for 300 years would understand that far too well. And suspect that as well of being an overly convenient story. But there was nothing he could do about that. 

"At any rate, you're not just going to believe me," said Roland. "So you're just going to have to keep watching to find out." 

"...That I shall," said Leander, and rose. "That's a haunting tune you're playing. From your kingdom?" 

"It's been stuck in my head for days," said Roland. Since they'd first arrived in Hydropolis. "I'm hoping giving it free rein will get it out." 

"Has it words?" 

Roland didn't want to say, but what harm would it do? "Mirrors on the ceiling; pink champagne on ice. She said, we are all just prisoners here, of our own device. In the master's chambers, they gather for the feast. Stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast…" 

Leander was giving him a strange look. Roland ignored it. "Next thing I remember, I was running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before. Relax, said the nightman; we are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…" 

"...I see," said Leander, sounding faintly rattled.

"Yeah," said Roland. 

"Well. I will bid you goodnight, Mr. President."

"I'll see you tomorrow, " said Roland. 

The door closed, and Roland stared into the hollow of his guitar. 

He wasn’t spending his time looking into escape because he was afraid of what would happen if he couldn't. And more afraid of what would happen if he could. 

\--


	9. Songbook 9 | Just Like You Always Do

\--

One way in which this place was less like home: it was the second in command you had to watch for. Bracken was making her rounds of the kingdom, poking into everything with a scientist's curiosity. Sooner or later, he knew from the start she was going to make her way to him. 

After her conversation with Evan, it was an inevitability. "So I heard about Ding Dong Dell on Leafbook," she’d said, "and Tani posts a lot too. I'm surprised you managed to get anyone out of Hydropolis." 

"It's a long story," said Evan, "and you should probably hear it from Leander." 

"Got it." She nodded amiably. "So, Mr. Roland, what's the deal with you?" 

"Technically it's Mr. Crane," he said, "but you can just call me Roland." 

"Cool. So, Roland. What's your story?" 

"He's the one who saved me from the coup," said Evan. "Well. He and Aranella." Evan looked away, like he usually did when she was mentioned, and then looked back with renewed resolve, also as he usually did when she was mentioned. 

"I'm the chief advisor here," said Roland. 

"Seems like a step up, if you were a guard in Ding Dong Dell." 

"Oh, no," said Evan. "I don't think Roland's ever been a guard. He's a king, actually. Or no, a president, like yours! I'm sorry, I always get that mixed up, don't I?" 

Roland had just shrugged. He liked misinformation. He had found it was usually to one’s advantage to be underestimated. Then he’d been elected, and most chance of that had gone straight out the window. It was nice to have it back.

"Really? Huh." Bracken raised her eyebrows. "I'd taken you as a kingdom sort of guy. Nice to meet another elected official." 

"I didn't realize there were any elections here," said Roland. "I was kind of surprised to read about another president." 

"I never heard of any others around, either," said Bracken. "So what brought you to Ding Dong Dell, then? Diplomatic trip?" 

"Sort of," said Roland, "but it wasn't exactly planned." 

"We're still not sure why or how he appeared when he did," said Evan. "It was some sort of magic, but nothing I've ever heard of before." 

"Appeared?" Bracken frowned. "Like a trip door spell?" 

"Except without a trip door. And he didn't cast anything. I don’t think he knew magic even existed."

"Seriously? Huh. I'd taken you for a magic guy." 

Roland raised an eyebrow, and his arms band. "What, Martha didn't speak for me? I'm flattered." 

"Well, she's certainly quite elegant, but…have you actually named your gun?" 

"Mostly it's a joke," said Roland. "It's hard to explain." 

"I'll have to ask you sometime." 

"King Evan--" Leander hurried up, and the conversation was deferred, but Roland knew it was going to happen. And there was the added complication of those damned, potentially useful, prying eyes. 

So he'd decided to take the initiative. A pretext was easy enough. How about those dice they used in Goldpaw? Maybe she'd be interested to see how they worked? Maybe they could even find the one who came up with the idea. Bracken might want to talk to them, or maybe they could recruit the clever bastard for Evermore. And that meant going out of the city, didn't it? Even better; she could get the lay of the land. 

She'd agreed, and they'd set out for the Forest of Niall. They used a trip door to shorten the trip, but Bracken was curious about the forest, and they made an afternoon of it. Then they arrived at the forgers’ old den, and Bracken was immediately digging through papers and materials, talking with everyone. Roland tried to help, but quickly realized he had little to contribute. So he headed back out, pulled out his guitar, and waited. She was a scientist; she might be distracted for a while. But she would come. 

There was a song in his head, and for once it wasn't anything too outwardly betraying. Not unless you knew it in context. He could probably even sing it, if he chose. But that was probably a bad idea. He wasn't that good at it, and he'd long since gotten out of the habit of doing anything in public he wasn't good at. 

That… Probably wasn't such a good thing. 

"I'm glad we talked to these people," said Bracken, wandering over. "They’re clever enough to be useful for sure. It's not that it was advanced science or anything…" 

"Magnets?" 

"Huh. You really are a science guy, aren't you?" 

Roland wasn't sure knowing what magnets were was proof of that, but maybe in this world, it was. "I'm no scientist, but I'm definitely no magician. I just point at things and say the words they tell me." 

She shook her head. "That'll teach me. The way you were looking at that reactor, I'd taken you for a hardcore magician." 

Ah. He'd tried to hide his reaction, but even he could only lie up to a point. 

"So I guess it's just the reactor you had a problem with," she said. 

Apparently he wasn't having much luck with it today, either. 

"That reactor could change the world," she said. "You have no idea how much power it could generate for us." 

Yes, he did. He looked down at the strings. The question was, how much did he want to say? They were such innocents here. And could he really risk introducing the idea into their heads? 

Was there really any possibility that someone wouldn't think of it eventually? 

"We're taking every precaution," she said. "I know that during the attack, there was a risk of failure, but--”

"But do you know what would have happened if it had?" 

She paused, giving him an evaluating look. "Well," she said, "to be honest, it'd be one of the quickest ways to go." 

"Well, for us, it would've been," he agreed. "Probably the whole city, right? How much power was that thing packing? Maybe the valley?" 

She gave him a sidelong look. "How exactly do you know that?" 

"I'm pretty sure Zip mentioned it." 

“But that’s not how you know,” she said. "I'm going about this from exactly the wrong end, aren't I? I had you figured for being scared of it because you didn't understand it." 

He strummed a couple of chords. 

“But you’re scared because you _do_?”

“‘Understand’ is a really strong word,” said Roland. “I am not a nuclear physicist.”

"But you have a _word_ for the profession.” She gave him a sharp look, folding her arms behind her back. “Nobody else is as advanced in fission technology as Broadleaf," she said. "The details are top secret and I can count the people who understand them on my hand. Who are you? Where the hell are you from?" 

"We told you. I'm from elsewhere. It was magic." 

"That doesn't explain anything at all!" 

"I know," he said. 

"But nobody knows this," she said. "How do you?" 

"Look," said Roland. "I'm not a scientist. I don't know any of your secrets. I'm just from a place where we… Experimented with nuclear fission a time or two." 

She shook her head. "So what happened? Does it work? What's the best shielding? How much do you--" 

"Bracken," he said, "I'm _not a scientist_.”

“But your kingdom got it to work, right?”

“Why do you still call it a kingdom when it has a President?”

“Stop dodging the question!” Her hands balled into fists. Leander had probably warned her about this.

He took a deep breath. “Oh, yes. Yes, we did. We got it to work. But that’s not the question you want to be asking me.”

“I think I know what questions I want to ask!” She started pacing. “I knew it! If it can work, if it can really work, it’s just a matter of time until--”

“What would have happened if the reactor had gone out of control?”

“There’s a containment mechanism that would have prevented an uncontrolled reaction.”

“Which is great, but-- hang on. _A_ containment mechanism?” He frowned. “Please tell me you’re dumbing that down.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me you weren’t just relying on a single containment mechanism?”

She frowned at him. “There would also have been some protection from the--”

“Jesus, Mary, Mother of God.” He put his head in his hands. All right. All right. The risks that someone would create a nuclear weapon with this information were now officially outweighed by the risk of Broadleaf taking out the goddamn continent by mistake. He had no idea how much fissible material they’d been dealing with, but--

“Look,” she said, “the people who live in Broadleaf, we knew the risks. We--”

“No, you didn’t,” said Roland, “which I know because you’re talking about the people of Broadleaf like you’re the only ones who would’ve faced the consequences. Do you think a meltdown’s only going to release _thermal_ energy? You do know what radiation is, don’t you?” Then again, considering the entrance to their port goddamn _glowed_ , maybe they didn’t. Then again, considering that, they’d have to.

“Yes, but its range is limited, and it’s contained by--”

“Bracken, in a nuclear meltdown, exactly what the fuck do you expect to be _contained_?”

She paused, taken aback. Roland wasn’t actually sure when he’d last sworn out loud. It was highly impolitic. And he saved it for effect. He saved it for situations like this. “But it would be destroyed in the explosion,” said Bracken. “Wouldn’t it?”

“It would be spread into millions of more or less invisible particles _throughout the goddamn atmosphere_ ,” said Roland. “And no, it’s not going to be spent!”

“Shit,” said Bracken, and sat down beside him.

“Not that the thermal energy is anything to sneeze at. Have you ever seen people’s clothes cast shadows on their skin?”

Bracken frowned at him. “What the hell does that even mean?”

No. He still wasn’t going to talk about the bombs. He didn’t have to. There were Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. “And you’ve got the goddamn thing up eighty stories high--”

“To spare the lower levels in case of an explosion.”

“And seed radioactive material into the goddamn jet stream! Does this planet have a jet stream? It is round, right?” Roland shook his head. “Render the whole valley uninhabitable for a hundred years--”

“Just how big a reactor do you think we _had_?”

“Radioactivity is not something to fuck with!”

She looked askance at him, rattled, but measuring. “I didn’t know you could even get this upset.”

“You’re a scientist. Extrapolate from the data!”

She already was, of course, probably more ably than he’d like. He took a deep breath; he let it go. Outwardly, at least.

“Do you _know_ ,” said Roland, “what radioactivity is.”

“Yes,” said Bracken.

“Do you know what it _does_.”

“We know it makes people sick if it isn’t behind shielding. The physicists think that the ionizing radiation would affect nearly anything besides metal. We haven’t wanted to test it on living beings, for obvious reasons.”

He took a deep breath; he let it out slowly. “How far have you all gotten on genetics?”

“It’s not really my field, but we’re made up of cells. There’s another department that thinks they can use certain radiation to get a picture of cell nuclei, something about x-rays and crystals, of all things--”

So probably not quite at DNA yet. Whatever. “It’s not my field either, but every cell contains a set of blueprints for creating more cells. You know mitosis, right? How cells divide and reproduce?”

“Of course,” said Bracken.

“Radiation can take those blueprints and randomly change them. Say I took a book and changed some of the y’s to z’s. You’re gonna end up with a lot of gibberish. Now, there’s a few scenarios there. Maybe what gets changed is junk no one pays attention to anyway. Maybe it’s a word that gets used, but it’s not that important and you can get what it means anyway. Maybe it’s a really important word and nothing makes sense anymore.”

Bracken nodded slowly. “So radiation can kill cells? I see why--”

“There’s another scenario,” said Roland.

“Oh?”

“The cells dying is a problem, but unless you get a pretty serious long-term dose of radiation, that’s not so bad. Well, it’s certainly bad, but if enough cells are left alive, you’ll recover eventually. But say the radiation makes some changes that don’t kill the cell.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Say the part that tells a cell when to stop growing gets messed up. Say the part that tells it to stay where it is gets messed up. Say the part that tells it when it’s time to go gets messed up. You end up with a cell that’s wrong, but still alive, and thriving, and breeding like mad. Spreading. Growing.”

Bracken’s eyes went wide. “Tumors? _Cancer_?”

“So you do have cancer in this world. I was wondering, but I didn’t want to ask.”

“It’s very rare,” said Bracken, “and sometimes magic can cure it, but sometimes, it’s too ferocious, too--” She paled. “Oh my God.”

“There was a company in my world that used radium in paint,” said Roland. “Watch-faces. The workers would lick the bristles to get a finer point.” He shut his eyes.

“And if radioactive material is spread-- how much does it take?”

“I don’t have numbers,” said Roland. “I’m not a scientist. I can’t give you specifics. I don’t claim to understand it. I just know what happens.”

“Because you’ve seen it,” said Bracken. “Because it’s happened. Leander said you’d lost half your kingdom-- he said he couldn’t imagine how it would be possible if you also didn’t have magic. But this is how, isn’t it? This is how it happened.” She swallowed. “This is why you looked at that reactor and--”

“Don’t let it happen here,” said Roland. “ _Learn from this._ We figured it out the hard way. Take this information and _don’t let it happen again_.”

“I-- oh my God.” Bracken’s eyes widened. “I have to get to Broadleaf.”

“Please tell me you don’t have another reactor going critical--”

“No, I have to talk to the people in the offices. I have to talk to the doctors!” 

Without a word of farewell, she cast Trip Door and was gone. Roland didn't mind; he approved. If they used this to stop themselves from making the same mistakes-- then it would almost all be worth it.

Bullshit. Nothing could ever be worth that price.

He looked down at the guitar, strumming a few simple chords. “We’ll meet again,” he sang, bitterly. “Don’t know where, don’t know when. But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day--”

His composure broke. The guitar dropped into the grass as he buried his head in his knees, clutching himself tight.

He’d evaded the grief for ages, but now-- now it had him in its jaws at last.

\--


	10. Songbook 10 | A Full Commitment

\--

The matter of the Prying Eyes was growing of increasing concern. “The whole kingdom is compromised,” Leander told him, as they took a leisurely walk back from “checking the condition of the boat”. “Except for the Cathedral, the Higgledry, and the Spellworks.”

“Too much chance of someone noticing,” Roland surmised. Mages would know spells, Lofty was a powerfully magical enigma, and Higgledies were like toddlers who would get into every crevice and were liable to wreck anything they found there. “The fact that they realized that means that we’re dealing with someone reasonably intelligent.”

“The coverage is imperfect, but unless you’d like a map-- which would be difficult to create without drawing suspicion-- I fear you must assume that your every move is being watched, for it most likely is.”

Roland nodded. He supposed he probably ought to behave as if this were a new and alarming prospect, but-- this was Leander. He wasn’t going to outright _admit_ that this was basically a return to standard operating procedures, but there was hardly a reason to lie.

He was back in his element, he thought, and didn’t grimace.

“I would suggest that there are two likely suspects,” said Roland. “Do you think this fits Doloran’s--” ‘M.O.’ was unlikely to translate. “--patterns of behavior so far?”

“Well, the man has certainly put a great deal of effort into infiltrating the kingdoms,” said Leander. “However… he’s frankly done a considerably better job of it. If he’d been spying on Hydropolis for years-- if he’d some other means of spying on Broadleaf I couldn’t detect while I was there-- why would he revert to something so crude now?”

Roland nodded. “True. Which leaves us with one major suspect.”

“That being?”

“Ding Dong Dell,” said Roland. God, he felt silly every time he had to say that name. And nearly every time he talked about someone from Goldpaw; at this point, he was starting to suspect they deliberately chose their names to be puns. That or his subconscious was more racist than he’d realised. Or the KGB was. He still hadn’t decided what was more likely.

“I suppose they’re the nearest major power,” mused Leander. “And the one with the most motivation to pry into our affairs. If they think Evan might be out for revenge…”

“Or they’re out for revenge themselves,” Roland pointed out. “I didn’t have time to get the whole story, but there was definitely some bad blood there.”

“Like cats and…” Leander coughed. “Apologies. That was terribly rude of me.”

“Good to know,” said Roland. 

“I suppose we have two options, then,” said Leander. “We can simply disable the Prying Eyes all at once; with the help of the other spellcasters in Evermore, it should pose no great difficulty. However, that would alert the culprit that their ruse has been discovered, and their next attempt might not be so clumsy. Alternatively, we could let the Eyes stay and hope they lead us to their maker. It would run the risk of leaking information we’d rather keep to ourselves, however-- unless we let everyone know about the situation, and someone would be bound to slip sooner or later. Most likely sooner. However… we could also manipulate the information that the Eyes see. Put on a front. Let this enemy learn information that is not so accurate as they would hope.”

Good work. Roland suspected Leander might currently be the best political mind this world had to offer. He was definitely in the top five. 

But Roland was from another world entirely.

“Oh, I think we could be a little bit more ambitious than that,” he said.

“Ambitious?”

“I’ve been working on a way to get that Mark of Kings ever since Evan mentioned it,” said Roland. “If we could get in through the back door, we could bypass the entire army.”

Leander frowned. “Yes, it would certainly be optimal. But how do you think it could be done? You’d need to get someone into the palace… You’re thinking we can use this to plant one of our own agents in Mausinger’s ranks? But how?”

“People see themselves in others,” said Roland. “We call it ‘projection’, where I’m from. Show them someone who wants power, someone who’s frustrated with the Evermore life, someone who’s willing to betray Evermore to get what he wants. They’ll believe it. For long enough, anyway.”

“But they’d also need to have information, or skills, that Ding Dong Dell would want. Who could--” Leander broke off, staring at him.

Roland permitted himself a small smirk.

“...You’re saying-- no, if you’re telling me, it officially counts as a plan; you’re planning on putting on a show of betraying Evermore so that Mausinger will recruit you and you’ll be able to steal the Mark of Kings?”

“That’s basically the idea,” said Roland, and his smirk grew a little wider. “What do you think?”

“If I may be so bold-- I think you'll be killed!”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” said Roland. “I fought my way out of that castle once before. They’ll be better organized, but I’ll have several things I didn’t have before. Better weapons. A better idea of what’s going on. Considerably more practice. And you.”

“Me?” Leander blinked.

“Here’s a puzzle for you to consider,” said Roland. “Assuming I go through with this-- what magic stuff can you give me to help me make it out?”

“Oh, good heavens,” said Leander.

“We don’t have to commit yet,” said Roland. “But we should start laying the groundwork. We’ll need some form of treachery for our Eye-setting spy to eavesdrop on. How good are you at acting?”

“Oh good _heavens_ ,” said Leander.

“Just think about it!” Roland called, and waved jauntily as he stepped across Evermore’s gate.

“I cannot for the life of me decide whether I am in the best ministry or the worst,” said Leander, and waved back.

Roland could practically feel the eyes on him as he headed back for the castle. He was fairly certain it was just paranoia-- but in this world, who knew? In this world, he was teleporting and growing giant mushrooms and casting what looked suspiciously like black magic with regularity. Maybe he really could feel the magic spying on him. It was an incongruously familiar feeling, and he wasn’t at all sure how he felt about it being back.

Then again, he’d never wholly assumed it was gone, had he? Wherever there were people, there were eyes. And ears. And Leafbook tablets. (It was possible he should do something about this world’s version of Zuckerberg before things got any worse.) But at any rate--

\--he’d come to accept that anything he said could be used against him. It was buried so deep in his awareness that he didn’t even have to think about it. He was always, always aware that he could be being watched. 

He wasn’t sure he should be OK with that.

It was too early for dinner; he retreated to his room, to consider his options. It was a frequent enough habit of his that it shouldn't elicit undue attention. He sat on his bed, and pulled out the guitar to help him think. 

Leander was already in on it. They could maybe pull Bracken in; she was too new not to be a wild card, but her technological expertise could help a lot. But ‘two can keep a secret’; the fewer people who were in on this, the better chance it had of succeeding.

And that definitely meant Batu was out. Probably Tani, definitely Lofty, and of course--

Of course, Evan.

He gritted his teeth, remembering news vans following his boy to school in the early campaign days, ambushing them outside hospitals, the coterie of Secret Service agents they’d had to assign to him, the look in his eyes. _Roland_ was used to it. _He_ had come to accept it. But Will-- but Evan hadn’t, and it infuriated him that he would have to.

It really shouldn’t be more offensive than the time they’d tried to assassinate the boy, but it was, somehow. How many ways were they going to try to wreck the boy’s childhood? And how could he finally stop them?

He smirked as he realized the tune he was playing. It recalled one of his favorite current pastimes: pondering just how the hell he would even attempt to explain American culture if he were foolish enough to try. _See, we had a version of Leafbook, except you could share moving pictures and sound on it too. And the means of recording those had been around for some time, so there was a wide variety available. You could also send someone a shortcut to a video. But sometimes people would get mixed up and link the wrong one. Then one time someone linked to a particular song, either deliberately or as a prank, and a lot of other people thought it was funny and started doing the same. And that, children, is how the ‘Rickroll’ was born._

It was a petty and meaningless revenge against the spies, but one that couldn’t possibly be caught, and there was a spiteful pleasure to it. _Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down--_

Roland’s fingers stilled on the strings. It didn’t stop the rest of the chorus from playing in his mind.

_Never gonna run around and desert you.  
Never gonna make you cry  
Never gonna say goodbye  
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you._

Holy hell. He had just Rickrolled himself. _Hard_.

He took a deep breath. _Don’t be foolhardy. Don’t think yourself invincible. Don’t get so caught up in the beauty of your plan that you forget about the other consequences. Don’t do this again._

And yet, if the alternative was sending Evan at the head of an army through the city he used to call home--

No. It could not be allowed. He could not permit it. It would break Evan’s heart. It would break Evan’s spirit.

And once a nation resorted to such a thing, there was no going back.

\--


	11. Songbook 11 | A Pretty Taste for Paradox

\--

“I hate you,” Khumbish panted, “so much.”

“Fair enough,” said Roland. He shivered all over. The frog spell had been useful, sure, but it was not an experience he wanted to repeat. How did he still have his things? How did he still have his organs? What the hell happened to conservation of mass? None of this could possibly be real.

“Can’t believe… almost got _eaten_... by a _frog_...”

“I think I _preferred_ the part where she was trying to eat us, personally,” said Roland, wincing.

Khumbish flipped him a gesture Roland hadn’t realised existed in this world, muttering something about “pretty boy” and “flippin’ fop” that he elected to ignore. He just breathed deep, with his gloriously human (and youthful) lungs, as his heart rate continued to settle down.

“So now the spell’s done,” said Khumbish, “we can go home, right? You can use that Trip Door spell an’--” He made a vague gesture that Roland recognized as referring to ‘magic nonsense’, having used it more than once himself. 

“Yeah, but the trouble is, the nearest one--”

Khumbish groaned. “Don’t tell me there en’t one in Evermore! There’s got to be!”

“Well, yes,” said Roland, “but--”

“Then let’s use that one!”

“--it’s in the Throne Room.”

Khumbish groaned more loudly. “An’ since some clever git decided to play traitor to the realm--”

“It probably wouldn’t be the best idea.” Actually, Leander would’ve made sure he wasn’t excluded from the wards, but if Batu were around, things might get a little awkward. Which was highly undesirable in situations that involved a burly man with an axe.

“Tell me there’s one close, at least?”

“It’s gonna be a couple hours’ hike.”

“Curse yer parents for land-lubbin, poxy, wretched sons of--”

“Oh, come on, we don’t need to bring parents into this, surely.”

“I’m gonna bring whatever I bleedin’ well say--”

Roland sighed and cast Trip Door.

“--you can’t do that while a mate’s talkin’! Ugh!” Khumbish massaged his jaw. “Gonna feel funny for hours!”

“Sorry, I didn’t know,” Roland lied. “Come on. We should hurry if we want to make it before lunch.”

Khumbish scowled and used both hands to gesture obscenely at him. Roland accepted this as his due and started to move on.

It wasn’t so bad, really. The Heartlands were beautiful; the sun was risen and bright; the monsters here all knew to give him a wide berth. It could almost make him forget that Ding Dong Dell was being beset by _Weasel frigging Hitler_ behind them.

So far, at least all he’d thought to do was evict all the cats into ghettos, but that was how it started. The pattern was clear. _First they came for the tabbies…_

He shook his head at himself. That felt like making light of the situation, but it was essentially the case. He hadn’t heard any plans for a Final Solution, but when you viewed a whole class of people as vermin, well… it was only a matter of time. Even here.

Clearly the guy was under the influence of the same evil magic as everyone else; he’d probably been the first to go under, and his advisor was an obvious plant. But nonetheless… could a man who would stoop to such methods, who could hold such deep prejudices, ever be suited to be King?

 _Don’t throw stones, Mr. President,_ he thought. His country was far from innocent. Few knew that better than he. And magic was a serious thing here. Maybe it actually could just brainwash you that badly. No one else seemed to have any trouble believing it.

Then again, no one else saw any problem with Niall being finance minister, either. But he hadn’t sold the kingdom yet.

Evermore still stood, Weasel Hitler was thwarted, and it was a beautiful day. What did he have to mope about?

“Sorry for callin’ ye a murderer,” said Khumbish.

Roland shrugged. He’d been called worse. He’d had a mob of college students crash a debate with a bucket of pig’s blood. He’d had it coming. “It was fair enough.”

“Just tell me,” he said. “All that lyin’ and betrayin’ and thievin’. What was it for?”

“We’re going to liberate Ding Dong Dell,” said Roland, “one way or another.”

“But can’t none of us go back there!”

“I stole the key to the back gates,” said Roland, and allowed himself a smirk. “We can get back in. We can arrange a meeting with Mausinger. And we can do it all without throwing away their soldiers’ lives.”

“Huh,” said Khumbish. “An’ that was worth it? Breakin’ the boss’s heart?”

He probably meant Batu. He could just as well mean Evan. But he wouldn’t have done this if he had any real hesitation about his answer. “Yes. Hearts heal. Death doesn’t.”

Khumbish glared at him mistrustfully and subsided into silence again.

They were past the hills and onto the plains when Khumbish muttered, “Could’ve said summat.”

He could’ve. But then they’d have had to lie, and they would have been terrible at it. But he was using the ends to justify the means, and he knew it.

“Think yer the smartest in the room…”

He did, and it had been his downfall before. He knew this. He fell into the trap sometimes anyway, but he knew it.

The trouble was, he _was_ the cleverest in the room far too often. And it was easy to forget how rarely that availed anything. What had his peace plans got him? What of his carefully crafted legislation? The press releases, the appointments, the conferences? None of it had been enough. Most of it had probably worked against him. In the end, people didn’t care why you were a scheming bastard. They didn’t care about your noble goals. They just knew it meant they couldn’t trust you.

And yet. If Mausinger was paranoid enough to spy on them, and if a rash of temporary insanity was infecting all the world’s leaders, diplomacy was not going to avail. It would have come to war, and an ugly one-- feh. As if any war wasn’t ugly.

He’d watched Evan grow better at handling skirmishes, but he would walk into hell with his head held high before he sent the boy to war. Before he sent any of them to war.

He’d done it before, and he knew now what it really cost.

“We’d probably win a war against Ding Dong Dell,” he said. “But we’d lose a lot of lives, and we’d lose Evan’s heart. I’m sorry for all the pain and trouble it caused. I’ll do whatever I can to make up for it. But I’m not going to lie and tell you I regret it. And at those stakes, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Khumbish looked at him for a long moment. “Well,” he sighed, “at least you’re on our side.”

“‘Til the end,” Roland agreed.

“Yer still a snake, though.”

“But your snake, through-and-through.”

“Good,” said Khumbish.

There was another few minutes’ silence; Evermore’s walls were in sight.

“This hike is still all yer fault, though.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“An’ you’re much too smug about all this.”

“Mm-hmm.”

"An’ what's that damned catchy tune you keep humming, eh?!"

Roland paused. He hadn't actually realized he was doing it. He was starting to wonder just how often he was slipping into the humming habit. He'd thought he'd broken it; he'd thought the job had broken him of it. But here he was, humming all over the place.

Maybe it was being around people he could trust.

"It's an old army marching song," he answered. "From a fight against a guy Mausinger reminds me of a bit." Only a bit, really, so far, but if he ever heard a phrase that sounded even slightly like 'final solution' coming out of Ding Dong Dell, he was going to assassinate the weasel personally, consequences be damned.

"Song? It's got words, then?"

Roland paused again, for longer. He'd every intention of keeping Earth history as locked away as he could, but... he kind of felt he owed the guy. "Yeah, it does."

"What are they, then? Better havin' a tune in your 'ead if you at least got summat to sing."

Roland smiled, slowly. "Hitler," he sang, "has only got one ball."

He watched Khumbish's mouth drop. He could practically hear the man wondering, did he just say what I thought he did? Did he just _mean_ what I thought he did? "Göring," he continued, "has two but very small."

The man's eyes kept widening. Roland wondered if it was possible for them to pop out of your head here. "Himmler is rather similar," he continued. "And of course Goebbels has no balls at all."

"No one's ever gonna believe me," Khumbish said faintly.

Roland considered that. "Probably not," he agreed.

"Yer a traitor an' a bastard an' a--"

"That I am," he sighed.

“No one’s ever gonna believe me!”

“...Would you like to hear another?”

“No!” Khumbish paused. “Yes!”

Fair enough. Roland smiled. “As you wish…”

-

Batu was hanging around the doorway of the throne room, his arms folded. Roland looked around; the others had left. “I guess we’re going to have it out?”

“Nah,” said Batu. “I get why ye did it. Though yer still a conniving bastard. An’ when I look back, you never actually said ye were betrayin’ us. ‘Cause yer a conniving little bastard.”

Roland was not inclined to argue that point. “What is it, then?”

Batu glared at him. “What exactly did ye do to my mate Khumbish?”

“I pretended to kill him, broke him out of jail, and then I turned him into a frog,” said Roland.

“Nah, I got that bit,” said Batu. “He’s sayin’ somethin’ about a song?”

“Ah.” Roland considered his options.

“Somethin’ bout how the shifty bastard knew no one would ever believe ‘im.”

“He was saying that.” In his experience, there were two types of reactions to this, and he had a strong suspicion he knew which camp Batu would find himself in. Which was… yes, that was perfect.

“Well? The devil did you do to ‘im?”

“You know.” Roland shrugged. “Sometimes it’s a lovely day, you’re walking along, you get a tune in your head.”

“If ye don't stop being a little weasel an’ spit it out--”

“I am the very model of a modern major-general,” sang Roland.

“Wha--”

“I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral; I know the kings of England and I quote the fights historical, from Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical--”

“What the _devil_ are ye on about?!”

“I’m very well acquainted too with matters mathematical, I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical--”

Batu’s hands balled into fists. “You stop that!” 

Huh; so it was a universal law, after all. What was it about Gilbert and Sullivan that drove jocks to violence so readily? “About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot of news, with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse--”

“I said stop, ye daft--”

“I’m very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous--”

“ _Those en’t even real words, you prat!_ ”

“In short, in matters animal, vegetable, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern major general!”

“Look,” said Batu, “It was a nice joke an’ all, but ye’ve got the poor man--”

Roland smiled. “I know our mythic history, King Arthur’s and Sir Caradoc’s--”

“Oh, that's it!”

Outside the throne room, Evan paused. “Er. This is alarming.”

Tani leaned her head in. “Eh. He en’t got the axes out. We’re good.”

“But why is Batu chasing Roland around the throne room?”

“Probably gettin’ some frustration out. It’ll be good for ‘im. He’ll get up tomorrow an’ it’ll be like the whole thing never happened.”

“Well, I do like it when Roland sings,” Evan mused. “He doesn’t talk much about his past, and I hate to pry.”

“Win-win situation, then, en’t it?”

“Are you sure he’s not actually going to strangle Roland, though? He’s important to me, and I really do need him as Chief Consul.”

“Eh, man’s a snake. Lookit ‘im dodge!” Tani leaned further into the room, with an impressed whistle.

“I’m really not sure I should be allowing this…”

“C’mon, it’s Roland,” said Tani. “He’s probably baitin’ ‘im on purpose to get the fight done with. If he does get knocked about a bit, he had it comin’ to him.”

“I suppose,” said Evan, very dubiously. “What is he even singing, though? And how is he getting out all those words so fast while ducking behind the throne?”

“See, this is why ‘e gets all those comments on Leafbook,” said Tani.

“What comments on Leafbook?”

“...Nevermind,” said Tani. “See, look, he’s done now.”

Even peeked back around the corner. “Is Batu killing him?”

“Nah, that en’t his serious headlock. That’s his ‘yer gonna shut up and take yer medicine’ headlock. Doesn’t even hurt.”

“And now he’s messing with Roland’s hair?”

“Makes ‘im feel like he’s in charge."

Evan shook his head, backing away. “Adults are _strange_ , Tani.”

“That they are.”

\--


	12. Songbook 12 | Until My Darkness Goes

\--

“You should rest,” said Evan. Roland was pretty sure that was exactly wrong. He had a feeling that they were on the precipice of something-- that he was just on the edge of some vital revelation-- that he had all the clues he needed, and they were starting to come together.

“We don’t really have time for that,” he pointed out. There was a melody stuck in his head, driving him forward, pulling him back. There was a nightmare behind his eyelids that was waiting for him to close his eyes.

“You just collapsed, Roland!” Evan stood firm. “We can spare five minutes!”

Roland wasn’t at all sure that they could. He knew what… he had an idea… he had a feeling…

_No colors anymore, I want them to turn black--_

Some part of his mind knew something and it was trying so hard to tell him. But everything-- everything hurt. Even thinking hurt. Thinking hurt the most.

_I have to turn my head until my darkness goes--_

He looked away, into the city, into the barren ruins, at the flicker of a ghost between the columns. A fantasy of a dead city. Someone who couldn’t bear to remember it was broken. But also couldn’t bear to repopulate it. Someone who--

\--Someone who was trying to remind him of their similarities. 

_The flowers and my love, both never to come back._

This wasn’t about architecture. And yet that was all that remained here. What had Doloran really lost? Who had he really lost? He wasn’t after _columns_.

He wouldn’t have resurrected that particular nightmare if he hadn’t lost someone dear. Who had he lost in the fire?

How similar were they? And how did Doloran know it?

_I look inside myself and see my heart is black._

From the very goddamn start he’d been hiding. Sure, it was second nature by now, but from the very start, he’d avoided saying anything about his home, his past, his world, his life. He’d walked into a _murderous coup_ and yet he was convinced somewhere deeper than reason that the truth of his world would taint them. That there was a poison deep within him that he didn't dare let show. A dark truth that couldn’t be revealed. And yet this world was no stranger to tragedy. It was barely a stranger to _concentration camps_. 

What was he so afraid of being revealed? What was he afraid he knew? What was he afraid he was capable of?

This. He was afraid that he was-- this.

That he could be-- that he was-- just as bad as Doloran. And worse.

_It’s not easy facing up when your whole world is black._

Doloran was trying to play on their similarities. A grievous tactical error. Two could play that game. And now-- now he was fairly certain he understood. Why Doloran was doing this. What he hoped to gain.

Why he would inevitably fail. And how it could be used against him.

_I could not foresee this thing happening to you--_

He lurched to his feet, though it turned his vision gray. Foolish. He breathed deeply as the fog cleared, trying to ignore the relentless drumbeat in his head.

_If I look hard enough into the setting sun--_

No.

He kept breathing. Leander and Bracken were looking at him. Tani too, even Batu. He did his best to forget about it. He concentrated on the fire in his chest and _refused_. He thought of green hills, blue skies, blinding sunlight. Amber waves of grain, purple mountains’ majesty (the red of blood) the orange of sunset (of fire) of light (of explosions) of _light_.

His wife, collapsed on the sofa with a glass of wine. Four in the morning and he was just getting home. His pager was still buzzing. The news was on the television, murmuring just below hearing. Two weeks to the election. They’d have to get up tomorrow and do it all again. And if he kept on this path-- if he ever went national-- it was only going to get worse. And so many people-- so many people-- working so hard, and for what? For him? What absurd selfishness.

Look at her. When was the last time he’d seen her for more than two minutes at a time? When they’d had the chance for a decent conversation? When they’d talked about anything besides politics at all? 

His heart ached. Maybe it had all been a mistake. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

Her eyes cracked open; she pointed at him with the glass of wine. “Make it worth it,” she said, voice blurred with exhaustion, but solid as a stone.

She’d encouraged him. She’d believed in him. She’d always stood beside him and behind him. She’d believed that he could do something good for the world, and for that, she was willing to sacrifice.

Doloran had loved a woefully inferior person if he thought they’d ever forgive him for this.

 _Make it worth it._ His breath was coming easier. It hurt, but he could stand against it. It hurt, but he looked at Evan, and he stood straight.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“You’re sure you’re all right?” said Evan, fretful, but he was already starting to push onward. He knew they didn’t have the time to waste, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Besides, we’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

Leander looked very suspicious. Bracken and Tani looked suspicious. Hell, even Batu looked suspicious. It didn’t matter.

“Oh, it’s-- oh no, a gate!”

Roland looked ahead and nearly laughed out loud. The gate was wreathed in dark fire, but he could clearly see the colors it was masking. _I see my red door, I must have it painted black._ If he’d doubted what his mind was trying to tell him before, it would have been considerably more difficult to now.

“If I may be so bold, such designs are usually in resonance with crystals elsewhere,” said Leander. “I suspect that if we explore the city, we will be able to find the gate’s guardians and set things to rights.”

Guardians? The same old story, then. He knew how this was going to go.

“Like a tainted monster,” said Evan. “We’ll have to beat them all, won’t we?”

“Well, then,” said Roland, and smiled a grim smile. “Let’s paint the town red.”

\--


	13. Songbook 13 | Not a Victory March

\--

The battles were over, and of course no one had thought this far ahead. Well, Roland had tried, but like most battle plans, it had failed to survive contact with the enemy. Besides, even he could not have predicted this exact scenario. Here they were, alive and victorious, with the man who’d nearly ruined the world.

“We can’t just leave him here,” Evan said.

“Well, we certainly can’t take him with us,” Leander countered. “He’s launched near-fatal attacks against every major country on the planet. They’d demand he be jailed-- at best.”

Roland gave Doloran a sardonic look: _good job, champ._ The mildly chastened glare he got in return reassured him that his message had gone through loud and clear.

“But we can’t leave him here alone,” Evan said, and immediately brightened, realising he’d found the solution.

“We have to get back to Evermore,” Leander said. “There is much to be arranged. The people must be reassured that the threat is truly gone. And we’ll have to explain that…” Leander gestured helplessly at the now-clear sky. “ _That_.”

Roland quirked his eyebrows at Doloran. Doloran glared back at him. 

Roland considered voicing the obvious solution, but decided that he probably shouldn’t. Evan was going to need to stand on his own two feet, and he could tell that he’d put two and two together. Let it come from him.

“Roland, would you stay?” Evan turned to him, as if he were asking a favor. “We know we can trust you, _and_ we know you’ll be safe.”

Roland smiled, approving. “That’s right!” Batu crowed. “I’d like to see ‘im try to hurt Roland!”

“By all means,” Roland answered, not taking that the wrong way. 

“I expect we have much we should discuss, as well,” Doloran said, surprising him. He’d expected the man to stay silent. 

“It’s settled, then! We’ll come back to fetch you once things are a bit more sorted.”

And so the others departed; they saw them off with a cheery wave, and now they were alone, in the skeleton of a dead city, gazing at the spot where the others had been.

“You’re a bastard,” said Doloran.

Roland had to give him another sardonic look. His eyebrows were going to freeze this way if the man didn’t smarten up fast. “I’m _your soul-mate_ ,” he countered, “and _one_ of us has known that from the start. If you couldn’t put two and two together, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

Doloran glared at him, and walked away. Roland sighed, and followed, at a safe distance.

The whole place was bleached white as a skeleton; ghosts still flickered through the columns. Doloran headed for the stairs; Roland lingered at the bottom, watching the breeze drift through the city. He wondered if anyone would want to live in this place; it seemed haunted, and he still wasn’t sure how much of it was actually real. 

He glanced up; Doloran had reached the top. Roland cast Trip Door and popped into existence right next to him.

“Why the _hell_ did I leave that thing active?” Doloran growled.

“I’d wondered that myself.”

“Oh, it won’t be a problem, I thought. It’s so convenient, I thought. They’re such a hassle to disassemble, I thought. Where the hell has my mind been?” Doloran sat down at the top of the stairs, putting his head in his hands.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn't wondered that as well. My ego is hoping it was some kind of black magic brainwashing thing.” Roland sat beside him, gingerly. It was a strange feeling, to talk with a stranger who was so close; uncomfortable, and yet it felt like there was a year of getting to know each other they could just skip over without a word.

“It was,” said Doloran, “but that feels like an excuse.”

“It probably is. But let’s drop one lie at a time. It’s easier that way.”

“Hell,” said Doloran, and buried his head in his lap.

Roland looked out at the clear blue sky. He felt… hollowed out. Still. Like a fire inside him had died and left nothing but soft ashes in its wake. Like he was coming to the end of the road, and he was ready to stop. 

Like his dying dream was coming to a close.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked.

“I was _lying_ ,” said Doloran, his voice muffled.

“Like most of our lies, I’d imagine it’s still true.”

Doloran looked up. “How the… You really are me. How the hell have you been hiding it all this time?”

“Hiding what?”

“You’ve been swanning about, following a child with dreams of uniting the world,” said Doloran. “No; let’s be specific. Of ‘creating a world where everyone can be happy’. Of course I took you for an idiot. Who else would think such a thing was possible?”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s possible,” said Roland. “It probably isn’t. The point is trying anyway. I’ve seen what happens when you settle for less.”

Doloran looked at him. Roland looked back. He put up a good front-- so good he hardly knew he was doing it anymore-- but Doloran would see past it. That was all right. He could do the same.

“You aren’t serious about rebuilding, are you?” he said.

Doloran scoffed. “Somebody’s spent the past year tempting every malcontent and refugee into a bright new kingdom of their own,” he said. “Exactly where would my new populace appear from?”

“It’s not entirely impossible,” said Roland. “There’s people who don’t want to live in Evermore. But I must admit you’ve made it a hard sell.”

“Yes, somehow I doubt that people would more readily trust me than your boy king.”

“It could probably be done, with time. But you don’t want to.” He didn’t bother phrasing it as a question; the truth was plain to see.

Doloran didn’t bother denying it. “How hard do you think I’ll have to pretend to try?”

“I’d be careful,” said Roland. “Evan might start sending people your way.”

“Oh, _gods_.” Doloran buried his head back in his arms. “And he’ll be suspicious if I change my mind too soon. I don’t _want_ a new kingdom to ruin. I’m _done_.”

“Maybe you could start wandering,” suggested Roland. “Say you’re scouting for new citizens, or trying to get in touch with the people. Pop up once in a while, smile, don’t try to take over the world. You won’t get too many questions.”

“A good suggestion. Are you hoping the experience will make me change my mind?”

“Doloran,” said Roland, “I don’t care. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, do whatever makes you happy. If that’s building a new kingdom, fine. If that’s living in a cave in the desert, fine. Dance in an alehouse for all I care. Do what it takes to survive.”

“And here I thought you’d be the expert on what I ought to do.”

“Do I look like I have my life together either? Doloran--” Roland shook his head. Was it even worth it? He wasn’t sure. “We may be… ‘soul-mates’ or whatever… but I’m not you, and I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. I am going to tell you to be glad you still have one.”

Doloran gave him an absolutely dirty look. Roland should have expected it; there were days there he’d have reacted the same way, and old a wound as it should be, it was also fresh. It was always fresh. He pulled out his guitar and looked away, looked down, plucking out the tune that was filling his mind.

“You play that thing? I suppose you really aren’t me.”

“It helps that no one has any idea what I’m playing.”

“I suppose it would, at that.” Doloran gave him a measuring look. “No one ever asks?”

“Not often. And I know I’m good at deflection, but I’m from another goddamn _world_. You’d think people would pry. But no. They just let me continue on with my bullshit. And I’m grateful, but…”

“Well, I won’t,” said Doloran. “I won’t be the only fool here. What nonsense are you playing?”

He smirked. “I heard there was a sacred chord that David played and it pleased the Lord; but you don’t really care for music, do you?”

“Bastard,” Doloran muttered.

“It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, and the major lift-- the baffled king composing, hallelujah…” He broke off, looking back down, focusing on picking out the notes.

Doloran was silent for a few long moments, watching him as he played out variations. “How did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“How did you survive?”

He looked back down. “I had a son,” he said. “There’s no magic in my world. I never had the illusion of a choice.”

“The illusion--” Doloran broke off, still unwilling to admit it had been an illusion all this time. How long had it been? How the hell did time work here, anyway? How was he still alive? And why had all his plans only come together now?

“I don’t understand how you could possibly bear it,” Doloran said softly. “Not if it was anything like this.”

Roland bristled at the incredulity in that last statement, as if his love were less because it hadn’t wrecked a world. But that was uncharitable. He remembered that pain. He remembered having no idea how to endure it. He remembered wishing he wouldn’t-- wishing he would just snap, break, fall, anything to make it end. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t, and he didn’t know how, and it had been torture.

“It’s not fair,” whispered Doloran, almost too softly to hear.

He’d seriously expected it to be? Roland was fairly certain each of them was convinced the other was the hopelessly naive one.

“Well, brother, I’ve been here before,” he sang softly. “I’ve seen this room; I’ve walked this floor. I used to live alone before I knew you.”

He looked down at the stairs, up at the city of stone. “I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch, but love is not a victory march: it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah…”

“At least you didn’t lose it all at once,” said Doloran.

He sighed, and decided to skip _her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you_. There was no need to be cruel.

“Did that help at all, not losing it all at once?” Doloran asked, after a pause.

“Well, I never did… whatever the hell any equivalent to this in my world would be. So maybe it did.” He looked out at the wine-dark sea. “But it sure doesn’t feel like it.”

“Tell me,” said Doloran. “If we didn’t do anything wrong. If it wasn’t against the will of the gods. Why? Why did it happen? What is the point? What is the lesson?”

“Child,” he said, exasperated ( _Louisa Clarkson, his deputy Chief of Staff, a woman from northern Georgia who displayed no fear of power whatsoever, and who had been waiting for him with speech notes in New York_ ), “who told you there was a _lesson_?”

“There has to be a point,” said Doloran. “Or what’s the meaning of any of it?”

“There isn’t one,” said Roland. “We _make_ our meaning. We build it. Every day.”

“And does that make it worth it?” Doloran demanded.

Roland paused, the better to formulate his retort. “Your perception of the viable alternatives is deeply skewed,” he said.

“And we never _actually_ lie if we can get around it,” said Doloran. “So tell me, Roland Crane. When love is ripped away and kingdoms die. For no just reason. Is it worth it?”

“...Do you actually think it’s going to make you feel _better_ when I say no?”

Doloran sat back, slowly. “I wanted to win _one_ battle today.”

“Is it helping?”

“Is it going to make _you_ feel better when I say no?”

He looked back at his guitar. He’d already answered, anyway. Doloran just didn’t know it yet. “Well, maybe there’s a god above, but all I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.”

“You did manage that,” Doloran muttered.

“It’s not a cry that you hear at night. It’s not somebody who’s seen the light. It’s a cold and it’s a lonely hallelujah…”

“So love is death and all is hopeless,” said Doloran.

“So everything lives before everything dies,” said Roland. “It’s worth something. It can be.”

“...Well, I certainly hope so.” Doloran let out a long sigh. “I should tell you something.”

“I’m guessing you don’t think I’m going to enjoy it.”

“I’m not even sure if I will.” Doloran paused, looking at him. “I didn’t bring you here.”

Roland frowned. “You didn’t?”

“I realize you have every reason to doubt my mental fitness at the time, but even I was not foolish enough to draw my greatest weakness into my world when there are so many others to choose from. It wasn’t me. It may have been the Horned One. I suspect it was Alisandra.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Several reasons,” said Doloran. “To protect you. I’ve seen the world you left behind.”

“How?”

“I pulled it from your nightmares, when I first realized you’d arrived,” said Doloran. “An abusable quirk of being soulmates. I wouldn’t suggest trying it for yourself.”

“I hadn’t intended to, thanks.”

“By saving you, she also saved me. But if it were that simple, she could have simply shielded you; she could have sent you anywhere. She brought you here. To stop me.”

“All right,” said Roland. But Doloran wasn’t done.

“With her gone, the spell’s power will wane,” he said. “And without a force actively tethering you here, you will naturally be pulled back to the world that you came from. To… well. To that.”

Roland nodded, slowly. “I’d suspected as much.”

“I don’t know if we can stop it,” said Doloran.

“I don’t know if it’s worth trying.”

Doloran shot him a sharp look, as if he thought he was being obtuse. “I don’t know what will await you there.”

“I have a few guesses.” He kept plucking out the chorus. _Hallelujah._

“How the hell are you still playing that thing!” Doloran stood. 

“Doloran,” said Roland, “I’m already dead.”

“I can assure you,” said Doloran, “that you are not.”

That was almost immaterial. “I’ve spent the past-- Christ-- every second since the moment I came here under the assumption that I was dead. It seemed by far the most likely explanation. To be frank, I’m still not entirely convinced otherwise.”

“And that doesn’t upset you?”

He wasn’t sure how to explain. Doloran didn’t seem to be-- wasn’t currently-- blaming himself in quite the same way. Maybe his country had been more innocent. Probably it hadn’t had a CIA. No Trail of Tears, no banana republics, no Tuskegee, no Hiroshima. Probably some problems, but anything like his? There was Mausinger’s ethnic cleansing, there was Broadleaf’s environmental devastation, and yet--

\--but maybe this was just another form of American exceptionalism.

He didn’t know how to explain that he deserved this. That his own decisions had brought him to that place, and he would abide by the consequences. That a true captain went down with the ship.

Maybe that was nonsense. But he was so tired.

“I did my best,” he sighed. “It wasn’t much. I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch. I told the truth. I didn’t come to fool you.”

He paused, considering if he could honestly sing the next two lines. And-- yes, yes he could; it rose in his heart more strongly than he’d expected, lifting his voice to something that rang through the skeleton city. “And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but _hallelujah_ \--”

He shut his eyes, focusing on nothing but the strings under his fingers.

“...You’ve made your peace with it,” said Doloran. “And I suppose I shouldn’t blame you. I think I could accept either outcome myself. It’s a long and wasted life I’ve lived. It should be enough for any man.”

“Then it’s settled,” said Roland.

Doloran laughed. “Nothing’s _settled_.”

“It never is. It never ends. It never fails to change. But it never ends.”

“Is that meant to comfort or torture me?”

“I don’t know,” said Roland. “I’ve lost everything I was ever entrusted with and I’m going to die in fire. I don’t know anything. But from those ashes, America will rise. I pray it will be a stronger, better America than the one I’m going to die with. They say fire purifies, doesn’t it? Maybe they’ll learn from our mistakes. But it doesn’t matter. It’s their time now.”

“I’m not sure you’re taking the right lessons from this,” said Doloran.

Roland kept playing. Doloran sighed, exasperated, and looked away. He could hardly expound, at the moment, on the right lessons to take from anything. And yet he still thought that there were _lessons_. Roland shook his head.

“So you really think Alisandra brought me here?”

Doloran shrugged. “Means, motive, and opportunity. Why would the Horned One have done it?”

“To have two of us, obviously. Imagine if you’d actually convinced me.” Roland scoffed. “I’m pretty sure we could take over the world, given how close you came to managing it. Maybe a few of them.”

“That wasn’t actually my goal.”

“You did it anyway.”

“Well, there is that,” Doloran allowed.

“What I don’t get is, however it happened, why did it make me like 30 years younger?”

“To _vex_ me,” said Doloran. “Well. That or she thought you looked cute in the ponytail.”

“I guess that is another piece of evidence toward the Alisandra hypothesis.”

“She wasn’t _shallow_.”

No, but if she was who Roland thought she was, she’d been partial to long hair, and had often been known to gripe that it was so incompatible with American politics. The suits had been at least some consolation. Perhaps she’d have liked it here-- except, of course, she’d had a chance at living here, and it had turned out even worse than her attempt in Roland’s world. Perhaps they’d got the better end of it after all.

“There’s an idea,” said Roland. “I know a job that’s about to open up.”

“What-- oh, for gods’ sakes.” Doloran folded his arms. “You do remember that our fates are linked? With you gone, my availability is likely to become severely limited.”

“True, I suppose. But who knows, I might survive a while. And any time we can buy would be worth it. I’ve got a replacement in mind, but it’ll be a while before she’s up for the job, and I’ve been hard pressed to think of anyone who could work in the interim, considering there’s no way Leander’s going to stay.”

“A replacement--” Doloran frowned. “Oh, almighty _gods_. Have you lost your mind?”

“Seriously, spend some time in Evermore and tell me there’s a better option,” said Roland. “Well, Bracken might be OK as a stop-gap too, but I don’t know if she’s really intending to stay away from Broadleaf for so long. Especially since they’ve got a nuclear power program to fix. And I'm pretty sure they've got another scientist who’s discovered crystal meth. Tap Bracken in if you can, but not accidentally nuking the whole continent takes priority. But otherwise, I’m telling you, the best option in Evermore is--”

Doloran folded his arms. “If the best option in Evermore is the bloody _pirate girl_ , the kingdom is utterly _doomed_.”

“Spend one week there,” said Roland. “One week and you’ll be apologizing for all the bad things you’re thinking about me right now.”

“No, I won’t.”

“OK, half the bad things you’re thinking about me right now.”

Doloran laughed, and sat back down beside him.

“You know, it’s kind of nice, just cutting out some of the bullshit,” said Roland. “I wasn’t sure I was capable of it, anymore. But between you being both me and also kind of a jackass--”

“I just might agree, you insufferable prig. Though I’ve been at it a bit longer.”

Roland looked over at him. “We’ll salvage all we can,” he said. “We’ll put as much as possible aside for the future. And then-- then we’re going to go home, Doloran.”

Doloran nodded, slowly. “I’ll drink to that.”

“Tell me you’re not being metaphorical?”

“Roland. Of _course_ I have a fully-stocked cellar. You have _seen_ what my life has become?”

“Then what are we sitting around _here_ for?” Roland stood.

“An excellent point,” Doloran said, rising. “Follow me.”

Roland followed his defeated double into the heart of the city of Allegory, with all the fearlessness of a dreamer who knew he was in control of the world.

Who knew he was soon to awaken.

\--


	14. Songbook 14 | Let Me Bid You Farewell

\--

It was the middle of the second week without Roland, and time was passing on. Evan felt like he was walking a tightrope and the nets that would save him had all been taken away. But there was a voice in his memory, warm hands on his shoulders reminding him how to keep his balance.

It would be enough. It had to be. And it was time he started walking on his own.

Inasmuch as he was ever alone. He’d been in meetings all morning, and had an audience with Pugnacious this afternoon. And when he went out into the kingdom--

Everyone talked to him. Everyone thanked him. Some people had errands they needed doing; some had complaints; some had reports. It was something, it was always something, and he’d finally come to understand Leander’s final gift before he’d returned to Hydropolis. A book on statecraft, and a spell.

_“Disguise?”_

_“In case you ever want to pass somewhere unnoticed. There are places a mere costume won’t suffice.”_

Right. Like Evermore.

It was a relief to walk quietly and unbothered along the streets, an unassuming brown tabby grimalkin, and moreover, he often heard things he suspected people would never say if their king were around. He thought he might have to make a habit of this. It wouldn’t be difficult.

It was a quiet day, warm, the sky dotted with fluffy clouds. The market was ahead-- but even from this far away, the bustle was threatening to give him a headache. He turned right instead, toward the sound of music. Sin-Gul and Nereus were working on a concert, he recalled; celebrating music from throughout the world. Maybe they were practicing. The tune sounded familiar-- maybe something he’d heard in Hydropolis?

It ended as he approached the Symphonium, but he settled down on the steps anyway. It was rarely quiet here for long.

“Quite the piece of work,” Nereus was saying. “But where did it come from? Your old kingdom?”

“No,” said Sin-Gul, “I got it from Roland before he left. And it was quite the fight, I can tell you that!”

Evan sat bolt upright.

“Fight?” said Nereus. “I’d got the impression the man was a bit musical himself.”

“Which is why I asked him! But he’s as secretive as a sea-snake!”

“Even about music?”

“Pah! He was supportive enough of the concert when we brought it up. So I asked him for something from his kingdom, and he said he wasn't sure if it deserved to be remembered. Wasn't sure if it deserved to be remembered! What kind of a king says that! I gave him what for over that one!" He shook his head. "And the next evening he comes back and gives me this!" 

"Astonishing." 

"I don't know where to put it. I'd love to make it a centerpiece, but…" 

"Is it a note we'd want to end on?" Nereus looked speculative.

"I don't know. But it's absolutely got to go in somewhere." 

"And we've got to get it right. I had a few ideas about using the organ." 

"Shall we try it out?" 

Evan leaned closer. They started with the organ, something solemn and serious, but also… Peaceful, somehow. Serene. Reverent. It made him feel still, even as his ears strained to hear every detail.

"These mist-covered mountains," Sin-Gul sang, "are a home now for me." 

Evan’s heart seized. He knew this tune. He'd heard Roland humming it, several times in the last few weeks. He always wanted to know so badly what the words were to the tunes Roland only hummed, and now he was finally going to find out. One of them, at least, and maybe the most important. 

"But my home is the lowlands," Sin-Gul sang, "and always will be." 

Was that how he'd felt? Evan could hardly blame him-- he had a kingdom of his own-- but it still hurt. But…That was how it was. Being a king was an incredible responsibility. He knew that. He understood. It still hurt, though. 

"Someday you'll return to your valleys and your farms," he sang. "And you'll no longer burn to be brothers in arms…" 

Maybe that was what he was missing, when he missed the fighting. It wasn’t the battling, it wasn’t the hurting people, it wasn’t the danger. It was fighting together, for a common goal.

Maybe he didn’t have to feel so bad about missing it, then. And maybe it wasn’t really gone.

"Through these fields of destruction," Sin-Gul sang. "Baptisms of fire." 

Evan wasn't sure what that was, but they'd seen fire and destruction. He remembered Roland humming this, looking back over the battlefield, his face turned away. Evan had wanted to know what he was thinking so badly. It had seemed so impossible to ask.

"I've witnessed your suffering, as the battle raged higher. But though they did hurt me so bad, in the fear and alarm, you did not desert me, my brothers in arms…" 

Another interlude, and he was blinking back tears already. The sorrow and gratitude in that line was hurting him. He knew that feeling. Roland was one of the people he felt most strongly that way about. And to imagine Roland feeling that way too...

"There's so many different worlds," Sin-Gul sang, and a shiver ran down Evan's back. He could imagine Roland singing this, eyes cast down as they always were when he played, as if he were afraid of giving himself away. He could almost hear his voice. “So many different suns. And we have just one world, but we live in different ones… "

That was what they were really fighting against. The battle Evan kept hoping was over; the battle that kept resurfacing in a hundred different ways over and over again, everywhere he looked. That was what he was going to spend his whole life trying to end.

“Now the sun’s gone to hell,” he sang, “and the moon’s riding high. Let me bid you farewell: every man has to die…”

Serene and sad and full of grace, and that was the moment Evan realized.

“But it’s written in the starlight, and every line in your palm…”

This was an eulogy. This was a last farewell.

Roland had put on a brave face, mentioned that there were various possibilities, but in this moment, Evan was irrationally and completely certain that, whatever his words, the man had _believed_ that he was going home to die.

“We’re fools to make war on our brothers in arms…”

He’d walked into death with a smile on his face. Because that was what a King had to do.

This was his last lesson.

And Evan knew Roland was alive. He didn’t know how, but Doloran had assured him he’d know otherwise-- and Evan simply believed it, deep in his heart. But Roland hadn’t known that. And he’d just _left_ , and--

He pressed his sleeve to his eyes, hard. It felt like his heart was breaking. Roland, who had done so much for them all. Roland, who had carried him through so much and asked for so little. To think of him walking alone into fire and death, because it was his duty-- or because he thought it was his due--

Evan didn’t believe in never. There wasn’t any way they knew of for Roland to come back, but he’d appeared out of nowhere in the first place, and Evan found it easy to believe that he might do so again. And if he did-- Evan was going to _ask_. He wasn’t going to be afraid to pry. He was going to learn what was locked up inside that head. He was going to take the burdens Roland carried and make him share them.

And until then-- he was going to take this lesson. He was going to tell Sin-Gul and Nereus to put this song at the end of the concert. He was already thinking of the speech he’d make before it.

_We’ve played tonight songs from across our world, celebrating the amazing blend of cultures that we have here in Evermore. It’s amazing because it’s beautiful. Because it’s the beginning of new and wonderful things. And because our different lives, our different perspectives, are the most valuable thing that we possess._

_I would like to close this evening with a song from what might be the most far-flung culture we know: that of my Chief Consul, Roland Crane._

_Some of you may know that Roland was from another world. He did not speak much of his kingdom to me, but I learned that it was a wide and troubled place, torn by wars, and by weapons of horrific power. Before he left, he gifted us this last song from it. This is what he wanted to leave us as his world’s legacy. Listen, and you will hear what he had to say to us._

_We may have our differences, but that does not have to divide us. It means that we need each other. It makes us stronger together than we ever were apart._

_And-- thank you. Because of each of you, because of every one of you in concert, we will be able to make our dream a reality._

_We’ll never give up. Whether or not the battle ends, we’ll keep fighting for our dream._

_And we will live happily together at last. ___

__\--_ _


End file.
